The Incomplete Puzzle: Emerging Data on Adolescent Health_Beth Outterson_4.25.13
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•293 views
The document summarizes key points from a meeting discussing emerging data on adolescent health based on an article in The Lancet. It notes that while adolescence is a major period of development and health determinant, data is often not disaggregated and there is no common framework. Researchers are asking how to determine core health indicators, understand the current data picture, and measure adolescent health. The meeting reviewed findings on adolescent mortality causes, key data sources, theme coverage gaps, and early childbearing statistics. It calls for establishing core indicators, harmonizing measures, broadening data systems, and increasing focus on neglected health areas like mental health.
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to The Incomplete Puzzle: Emerging Data on Adolescent Health_Beth Outterson_4.25.13
Similar to The Incomplete Puzzle: Emerging Data on Adolescent Health_Beth Outterson_4.25.13 (20)
More from CORE Group
More from CORE Group (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
The Incomplete Puzzle: Emerging Data on Adolescent Health_Beth Outterson_4.25.13
- 1. CORE meeting April 25, 2013 The Incomplete Puzzle: Emerging data on Adolescent Health Based on George Patton’s article in the Lancet series: the Health of the World’s Adolescents: a Synthesis of internationally comparable data (April 2012)
- 2. Why is there so little data on adolescents?? • “healthy” time of life, yet coincides with major changes & determinants of health • Increased mortality from preventable causes, mental disorders, risk for NCDs • Most data not disaggregated >> few reports • No common framework, definitions, indicators, no comparability of data • Programs silo-ed; no development approach
- 3. How can we understand the data? Three Questions asked by researchers • Which indicators should we use? • How good a picture do we have of adolescent health now • How healthy are they?
- 4. How can we determine indicators? Criteria: • Public health importance • Measurable • Relevant to major policies • Compelling, modifi able and available over time
- 5. Findings: How do Young People Die? Green=Injuries; Red= Infections; Orange=NCD; Blue= Maternal
- 6. Key Sources of Data on Adolescents • Household surveys • School surveys – Health behavior of school aged children – Global school health survey- potentially comparable • Databases – Global mortality database – ILO and UNESCO • Other – Global mental health survey – death registries- not available in many countries
- 8. Maternal Mortality15-19 yrs Sub Saharan Africa
- 9. Childbearing Starts Early • bar chart from UNICEF report card with # mothers under the age of 15. Great data that now shows a new picture of urgency, where we should be focusing our efforts, now that we have the data.
- 10. %Tobacco use: males 13-15yrs
- 11. Overweight in females 13-15
- 12. Implications • Adolescents face triple burden: poverty, injury, NCD risk • consequences for future population health, next generation risk, jeopardized childhood investments, threatens the demographic dividend • However this is still an incomplete picture of the magnitude of the problem
- 13. Recommendations • UN agencies & govts establish core indicators • Harmonize measures to compare data across countries/regions. • Broaden data systems for increased coverage • Encourage country level reporting • Increase our leadership/attention on neglected areas: mental health, substance abuse, and NCDs • CORE members: join the adolescent task force, encourage youth engagement and participation!
Editor's Notes
- We know that Young people are commonly regarded as healthy and for that reason few attempts have been made to systematically measure their health. Yet adolescence and young adulthood coincide with major changes in health problems and determinants of health in later life.1—4 Mortality rises due to preventable causes that include injury, HIV, tuberculosis, and maternal death.5 Mental disorders also rise sharply during the adolescent years.6 Many risk processes that lead to chronic non-communicable diseases in later life, including tobacco, alcohol, and illicit substance misuse, unsafe sex, obesity, and lack of physical activity, typically emerge around this time.6, 7Indicators of health and its determinants are important for good policy responses both nationally and worldwide.19—22 For this reason there has been a rapid increase in indicators across many aspects of health,23, 24 but few seem well measured.25, 26 One consequence has been a call to define a smaller number of core health indicators.27 For adolescents there is also a need for indicators beyond sexual and reproductive health (which is major focus on MDG indicators), the major focus so far. These indicators need to account for the rapid health transitions happening in many countries.23 More comprehensive approaches would include relevant social determinants of health as well as the contribution of adolescent-onset risk states and behaviours to future disease burden.3, 28 We outline a set of indicators drawn from the conceptual framework of this Series (figure 1), present data on the extent to which data systems have comparable measures of these indicators, and propose strategies for improving global health surveillance in young people.
- So how can we best understand the data on adolescents?Researchers look at 25 sources of data on adolescent mortality and tried to answer 3 questions:Which indicators should we use?How good a picture do we have (coverage) with the data we have now?What do the data tell us about the health of adolescents?
- What we are really looking at here is the outcomes on the bottom of the slide. It became very clear that there were no common indicators being used across data sources. So a set of criteria were established.They need to Have public health importanceBe measurableBe relevant to major policiesBe compelling, modifiable and available over time
- This is what the data showed across the studies that they reviewed. Males aged 10-24 tend to die primarily from injuries and accidents whereas for girl it is more around maternal health issues due to childbirth. Of course these vary by region but this is the overall data
- Where did the data come from?School health data had the most broad geographic coverage but was still almost completely missing in SSA.
- Coverage of topics: 7/25 data sources have at least 50% coverage of specific topics. Few honed in determinants of risk. Very little data on substance abuse, mental health, health care delivery
- So how healthy are they? Although the data from SSA is very scant it is interesting nonetheless to see here the Best available estimates of maternal mortality rates in SSA among 15-19 year olds. There is so much more research that needs to be done to unpack these numbers and their determinants.
- Here we have a chart from UNICEF report card on adolescents that shows number of births to girls who have given birth by age 18 in 20 countries. Superimposed on that is the percentage of girls who have given birth by age 15. This paints a completely different picture when we have the age disaggregated data in terms of where we should prioritize our efforts. Adolescents in conflict settings will surely be disproportionately be affected. This is one of the key reasons why we need data on younger adolescents.
- Tobacco use % males age 13-15 selected countriesInfluence of the media certainly plays a large part in this
- Overweight in females age 13-15 years: selected countriesInfluence of the media can play a huge role
- Adolescent health is reelvant for the MDGsData is importantAdolescents face a triple burden: poverty, injury, NCD riskConsequences for future population health, next generation risk, jeopardized childhood investments, threatens the demographic dividend (lower workforce capacity, shortened working lives, sicker old age
- Establish a core set of indicators Harmonize measures so data can be compared across countries/regions. Currently UN is working at the international level with governments to address this need for standardized data for monitoring and reporting.Broaden data systems so we have increased coverage on different Country level reports—need to be donemore leadership/attention on neglected areas, like mental health substance abuse, and NCDsWhat can CORE members do? Get involved: CORE now has an adolescent task force. Developing an adolescent matrixEncourage youth participation –WOMEN Deliver in the end of May, ADDIS FP conference in November00290International community is more interested in recent years--Global health initiative, UNICEF adolescent report card, Lancet series. USG has its new Youth in Development Policy (it is multi-sectoral). Elizabeth Berard is here to share the substance of that policy and how it views youth in terms of their health and development needs.