Question

What are some of the policies or effective programs geared towards addressing adolescent health issues? Describe at least three.

Answer 1

Adolescence is a period in which an individual undergoes major physical and psychological changes. There are enormous changes in the person’s social interactions and relationships. It presents a window of opportunity to set the stage for healthy and productive adulthood and to reduce the problems in the years that lie ahead. It is a period of risk, a period when health problems have serious immediate consequences that occur.

Investing in the health of adolescents helps prevent the deaths that occur globally due to road traffic injuries, violence, suicide, HIV and pregnancy related causes. It can improve the health and well being of adolescents who experience health problems such as depression, anaemia or HIV infection and promote the adoption of healthy behaviours. This help would prevent health problems such as cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer resulting from physical inactivity and tobacco use initiated during adolescence. Problem behaviours that could have serious adverse effects on health in the future are initiated.

There is growing recognition of the economic benefits of investing in the healthy development of adolescents, and the economic costs of not doing so. Adolescents represent the global population, healthy, competent adolescents who enter the work force can raise the economic productivity of a country.

Not investing in the health and development of adolescents contributes to the vicious cycle of ill health and socioeconomic deprivation. To site an example, girls from poor communities are more likely to get pregnant than well to do communities, during their adolescence. This in turn leads to loss of educational and employment opportunities, keeping them in poverty.

Many things need to be done by many sectors to improve adolescent health and development. The health sector has a crucial role to play, through a range of actors, including government bodies, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector.

The goal of improving adolescent heath in two main way, by recommending comprehensive, multisectoral and evidence informed adolescent health approaches, by delineating and supporting the critical contribution of the health sector, including the leadership role of health ministries.

This is firstly because many adolescents and young people are living with HIV, and many also experience sexual and reproductive health problems. Secondly, these priorities are the focus of many international development goals. Lastly, most countries have national programmes, strategies and budgets in place to address these priorities. These entry points, can be used to address other public health issues affecting adolescents such as nutrition, mental health, substance use and intentional or unintentional violence.

The lack of accurate and up to date data on the health of adolescents hinders well informed policy and programme formulation. The results and analyses are not routinely available and consequently do not inform policy and programme development. Health authorities should facilitate the systematic collection, analysis, dissemination and use of data disaggregated by age and sex on various aspects of adolescent health for the purposes of advocacy and informing relevant policy and programme development.

Action on strategies should include enabling and guiding policy statements on programmatic need to be carried out and how they should be implemented in order to effectively address the specific needs and problems of adolescents.

There are many barriers hinder the use of health services by adolescents. To respond to this, NGOs are involved in providing health services that are intended to specifically respond to the needs of adolescents, and to be friendly to them. In places where they do, they are typically involved in providing health information and education, in building life skills, empowering adolescents and in mobilizing communities to respond to the needs of their adolescents.

These implements should conduct analysis of adolescent health, review of selected public health programmes. Develop a strategy to strengthen the health sector’s response to adolescent health, within a broader multisectoral strategy. Develop national quality standards for health service provision to adolescents. Decentralize the approved national quality standards to the regional level. Develop and adapt generic materials to promote and guide the implementation and monitoring of activities to implement and monitor the standards. Develop a cost effective national scale up plan for implementing the standards.