Adolescence

Reports:

The Science of Adolescent Risk-Taking: Workshop Report
2010

Adolescence is a time when youth make decisions, good and bad, that have consequences for the rest of their lives. Some of these decisions—about their sexual behavior, driving, substance use, or criminal activity—put adolescents at risk for injury, lifelong health problems, or death. Researchers, health care practitioners, and others who work with adolescents understand what makes adolescents take risks and can use this knowledge to promote healthy decisions and prevent risky behavior.

The BCYF Committee on the Science of Adolescence held three public workshops between 2008 and 2009 to provide a venue for researchers, health care providers, and community leaders to discuss strategies to improve adolescent health. Participants identified ways in which findings can be shared across disciplines to improve understanding of adolescents’ risky behavior. They also discussed how to improve prevention and intervention strategies and noted areas in which further research is needed. This report summarizes the workshops.

Adolescent Health Services: Missing Opportunities
2009

Adolescence is a time of major transition, however, health care services in the United States today are not designed to help young people develop healthy routines, behaviors, and relationships that they can carry into their adult lives. While most adolescents at this stage of life are thriving, many of them have difficulty gaining access to necessary services; other engage in risky behaviors that can jeopardize their health during these formative years and also contribute to poor health outcomes in adulthood. Missed opportunities for disease prevention and health promotion are two major problematic features of our nation's health services system for adolescents.

Recognizing that health care providers play an important role in fostering healthy behaviors among adolescents, Adolescent Health Services examines the health status of adolescents and reviews the separate and uncoordinated programs and services delivered in multiple public and private health care settings. The book provides guidance to administrators in public and private health care agencies, health care workers, guidance counselors, parents, school administrators, and policy makers on investing in, strengthening, and improving an integrated health system for adolescents.

Challenges in Adolescent Health Care: Workshop Report
2007

Several positive and negative lifelong behaviors are established during adolescence including diet and exercise, sexual conduct, practices related to oral health, smoking, drinking, and the use if legal and illegal substances. The complex issues that adolescents deal with on a daily basis can turn into health problems that persist throughout adulthood. Unfortunately the adolescents who are frequently the most disconnected from routine health care services - those who lack insurance and family support - are often those at greatest risk for multiple and chronic health problems. Therefore, those that are responsible for delivering health care services to adolescents must address the health conditions that require immediate attention while preparing young people to adopt practices that can help improve their future health status and prevent unhealthy behaviors.

Challenges in Adolescent Health Care studies adolescent health care in the United States, highlights critical health care needs, and identifies service models and components of care that may strengthen and improve health care services, settings, and systems for adolescents. The book explores the nature of adolescent challenges and how they reflect larger societal issues such as poverty, crime and the prevalence of violence. These issues, in addition to lack of comprehensive health coverage, dysfunctional families and the lack of support systems, make providing adequate health care incredibly challenging.

Challenges in Adolescent Health Care defines high-quality health care, identifies the strengths and weaknesses of various service models and explores various training programs. The book recommends that health care providers must be sensitive to socioeconomic factors and incorporate health care in a broad array of settings including schools, neighborhoods and community centers.

Preventing Teen Motor Crashes: Contributions from the Behavioral and Social Sciences: Workshop Report
2007

From a public health perspective, motor vehicle crashes are among the most serious problems facing teenagers. Even after more than six months of being licensed to drive alone, teens are two to three times more likely to be in a fatal crash than are the more experienced drivers. Crash rates are significantly higher for male drivers, and young people in the United States are at greater risk of dying or being injured in an automobile than their peers around the world. In fact, in 2003 motor vehicle crashes was the leading cause of death for youth ages 16-20 in the United States.

Understanding how and why teen motor vehicle crashes happen is key to developing countermeasures to reduce their number. Applying this understanding to the development of prevention strategies holds significant promise for improving safety but many of these efforts are thwarted by a lack of evidence as to which prevention strategies are most effective. Preventing Teen Motor Crashes presents data from a multidisciplinary group that shared information on emerging technology for studying, monitoring, and controlling driving behavior. The book provides an overview of the factual information that was presented, as well as the insights that emerged about the role researchers can play in reducing and preventing teen motor crashes.

A Study of Interactions: Emerging Issues in the Study of Adolescence: A Workshop Summary
2006

The program committee organized and convened a workshop to describe the emerging fields of research on adolescent health and development that offer significant implications the health behaviors and the delivery of health care services for youth and young adults. The workshop addressed the following objectives: