Youth Health - Key Youth Health Problems

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 health problems, key, youth, health and/or problems:

    It is not stressful circumstances, as such, that do harm to children. Rather, it is the quality of their interpersonal relationships and their transactions with the wider social and material environment that lead to behavioral, emotional, and physical health problems. If stress matters, it is in terms of how it influences the relationships that are important to the child.
    Felton Earls (20th century)

    There are two kinds of timidity—timidity of mind, and timidity of the nerves; physical timidity, and moral timidity. Each is independent of the other. The body may be frightened and quake while the mind remains calm and bold, and vice versë. This is the key to many eccentricities of conduct. When both kinds meet in the same man he will be good for nothing all his life.
    Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)

    Age is opportunity no less
    Than youth itself, though in another dress,
    And as the evening twilight fades away
    The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

    To thee, fair Freedom! I retire
    From flattery, cards, and dice, and din:
    Nor art thou found in mansions higher
    Than the low cot, or humble inn.

    ‘Tis here with boundless pow’r I reign;
    And ev’ry health which I begin
    Converts dull port to bright champagne;
    Such Freedom crowns it, at an inn.
    William Shenstone (1714–1763)

    I conceive that the leading characteristic of the nineteenth century has been the rapid growth of the scientific spirit, the consequent application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems with which the human mind is occupied, and the correlative rejection of traditional beliefs which have proved their incompetence to bear such investigation.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)