Good health and optimum nutrition in adolescence

Overview

Good health and optimum nutrition extends from the absence of disease and malnutrition to the capacity to cope well with daily tasks and maintain functioning in the face of adversity. Adolescent health and nutrition are increasingly linked to social and structural determinants including climate change, globalization, urbanization, and technical development that drive changing lifestyles. For this reason effective health responses are often multilevel and multi-component with coordination across sectors. They include population-based policies to address the drivers of major disease burden in adolescents (e.g. road safety measures, interventions to address water, improved sanitation facilities and hygiene practices) and programmes targeting adolescents and school-age children in education settings (e.g. health promoting schools). Some of the greatest gains can be achieved by supporting adolescents in families facing disadvantage and discrimination and otherwise marginalised groups of young people. Health sector responses should focus on strengthening health systems to deliver on a subset of conditions that are sensitive to timely interventions by health services, such as mental health problems, sexual and reproductive health needs, malnutrition and communicable diseases. Multilevel responses to adolescent health and nutrition can be enacted though a national coordination platform to oversee efforts across sectors and government ministries.  Ideally the sectors of health, education, social protection would have focal points  for adolescent health and nutrition guaranteeing dedicated attention within each sector. Accountability mechanisms such as child and adolescent impact assessments, scorecards or dashboards to assess the effects on well-being should accompany a national vision for child and adolescent well-being and include measures for good health and optimum nutrition. Adolescent leadership and participation should be institutionalized and actively supported during the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of adolescent health.