Challenges In Adolescent Health

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.

This book addresses the issue of adolescent medicine and its place in society today. It discusses Australia's first hospital-based medical unit which officially opened in 1978 and is now called the Children's Hospital at Westmead, Australia. The future of the adolescent into adulthood is crucially dependent on the care given early on, addressing both the physical as well as mental and behavioural conditions imperative of stellar care. Although the book is directed to Australian youth, it would be applicable to all adolescent care in every part of the world. Abuse problems, such as smoking and alcohol, are also discussed and new avenues of treatment plans explored. This important book will be an aid to both professionals in the field and laymen, including the parents who remain the child's first and most important care-takers in his or her well-being.

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.

More children born today will survive to adulthood than at any time in history. It is now time to emphasize health and development in middle childhood and adolescence--developmental phases that are critical to health in adulthood and the next generation. Child and Adolescent Health and Development explores the benefits that accrue from sustained and targeted interventions across the first two decades of life. The volume outlines the investment case for effective, costed, and scalable interventions for low-resource settings, emphasizing the cross-sectoral role of education. This evidence base can guide policy makers in prioritizing actions to promote survival, health, cognition, and physical growth throughout childhood and adolescence.

Adolescence is the critical period or rather process in human development, where the individual leaves the dependency of childhood and enters a period in which dramatic changes occur, eventually resulting in what society identifies as adulthood. It is a complex developmental time involving sociological, psychological and physiological issues that starts with puberty and ends sometime in the third decade of life with central nervous system maturation (parents would want this period to be much quicker and shorter). The goal of adolescence is to develop an autonomous adult, who is capable of functioning at intellectual, sexual, and vocational levels acceptable to society. Prevention and management of health problems in children and adolescents can prevent considerable morbidity in adults. Working with adolescents is difficult, frustrating and very rewarding at the same time. In this book, we have gathered international research to show you a picture of health issues in adolescence and during the school period of human development.

Adolescence is a time when youth make decisions, both good and bad, that have consequences for the rest of their lives. Some of these decisions put them at risk of lifelong health problems, injury, or death. The Institute of Medicine 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.

Adolescence is a developmental period of accelerating physical, psychological, social! cultural, and cognitive development, often characterized by confronting and surmounting a myriad of challenges and establishing a sense of self-identity and autonomy. It is also, unfortunately, a period fraught with many threats to the health and well-being of adoles cents and with substantial consequent impairment and disability. Many of the adverse health consequences experienced by adolescents are, to a large extent, the result of their risk behaviors. Many adolescents today, and perhaps an increasing number in the future, are at risk for death, disease, and other adverse health outcomes that are not primarily biomedical in origin. In general, there has been a marked change in the causes of morbidity and mortality among adolescents. Previously, infectious diseases accounted for a dispro portionate share of adolescent morbidity and mortality. At present, however, the over whelming toll of adolescent morbidity and mortality is the result of lifestyle practices.

Adolescent Health Care: Clinical Issues provides an understanding of the main health problems and concerns facing teenagers. This book discusses the major legal decisions and thinking on confidentiality, consent, minor's right to health services, and the limitations of parental and medical authority. Organized into seven parts encompassing 27 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the main issues faced by any health care provider working with adolescents. This text then discusses the ways in which youths visualize their own health problems. Other chapters consider the normal nutritiona ...