Adolescent health: Moving from prevention to promotion through a quality
of life approach
Dennis Raphael, Ivan Brown, Ellen Rukholm, Nancy Bailey
January 1996, 4 pages
The Increasing Focus on Adolescent Health
It is not surprising that adolescent health has become an increasingly important focus of public health efforts. In contrast to other age groups, mortality and morbidity rates for adolescents and young adults in Western countries have been increasing the past few decades and evidence suggests that the health status of adolescents is lower than it was for their parents.
The increasing focus upon adolescents has been associated with broadened definitions of adolescent health. At a minimum, public health officials now consider healthy behaviours in addition to health status (i.e., mortality and morbidity). Healthy behaviours are seen as reducing immediate risk as well as leading towards the development of stable health-related lifestyles. There has also been an increased willingness to consider aspects of adolescent coping and adolescent development within these formulations.