Key Youth Health Problems
Some young people engage in risky behaviours that affect their health and therefore the majority of health problems are psychosocial. Many young people experience multiple problems. These behaviours are established as a young person and go on to become the lifestyles of adults leading to chronic health problems. Social, cultural and environmental factors are all important (Chown et al. 2004). Young people have specific health problems and developmental needs that differ from those of children or adults: The causes of ill-health in adolescents are mostly psychosocial rather biological. Young people often engage in health risk behaviours that reflect the processes of adolescent development: experimentation and exploration, including using drugs and alcohol, sexual behaviour, and other risk taking that affect their physical and mental health (AIHW, 2007). The leading health related problems in the age group 12 – 24 years are (AIHW, 2007):
- Accidents and injuries both unintentional and self-injury
- Mental health problems including depression and suicide
- Behavioural problems including substance abuse
- Sexual health / Infectious diseases
- Nutrition and physical activity
- Chronic illness
- Physical and Sexual Assault
- Youth homelessness
Young people often lack awareness of the harm associated with risk behaviours, and the skills to protect themselves as well as the lack knowledge about how and where to seek help for their health concerns (Chown et al., 2004). By intervening at this early life stage, many chronic conditions later in life can be prevented. Factors Influencing Health and Wellbeing according to the Australian National Youth Information Framework (AIHW, 2007) include:
- Environmental factors
- Socio-economic factors
- Community capacity
- Health behaviours
- Person related factors
Read more about this topic: Youth Health
Famous quotes containing the words key, youth, health and/or problems:
“I cannot tell what I am as much afraid of, as a woman who invariably washes on Monday. It is a kind of key to character; and if her mouth is not puckered and her brow wrinkled, they will be, unless she repents.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)
“His youth was distinguished by all the tumult and storm of pleasures, in which he licentiously triumphed, disdaining all decorum. His fine imagination was often heated and exhausted with his body in celebrating and deifying the prostitute of the night, and his convivial joys were pushed to all the extravagancy of frantic bacchanals.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“I think that carrying a baby inside of you is like running as fast as you can. It feels like finally letting go and filling yourself up to the widest limits.”
—Anonymous Mother. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)
“If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections.... Males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.”
—Newt Gingrich (b. 1943)