Adolescent rights-based approaches to health research about us.

While scientific research has attempted to improve adolescent health, recognising that investing in disease prevention in early life is more effective than later treatment, this has not achieved its aim, particularly in marginalised communities. When I (SW) was a youth advisor in 2019, aged 16 years, I told our research team that adolescents want to be involved in research about us but that the area seems so inaccessible to us that we remain disconnected rather than engaged. That year, less than 1% of all empirical child and adolescent health research included a youth voice. Growing health inequalities might be the catalyst required to reflect on our current approaches and to encourage researchers to collaborate with adolescents on that health research affecting them. Building the foundations for sustainable development: a case for global investment in the capabilities of adolescentsInvestment in the capabilities of the world's 1·2 billion adolescents is vital to the UN's Sustainable Development Agenda. We examined investments in countries of low income, lower-middle income, and upper-middle income covering the majority of these adolescents globally to derive estimates of investment returns given existing knowledge. The costs and effects of the interventions were estimated by adapting existing models and by extending methods to create new modelling tools. Benefits were valued in terms of increased gross domestic product and averted social costs. Full-Text PDF Youth perspective on chronic disease preventionChronic diseases, climate change, mental health, and COVID-19 recovery are among the most serious challenges facing our generation, who account for one sixth of the global population. Yet, current approaches to chronic disease prevention are proving ineffective, with limited advocacy and leadership initiatives for young people to collaborate with researchers to improve chronic disease outcomes. Researchers are responsible for engaging with adolescents as active research partners and guarding against unconscious biases to shape actions that support adolescents to lead healthy lives. Full-Text PDF