Young people's health needs action

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7496.0-c

BMJ 2005;330 (16 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7496.0-c

Young people's health needs action

Health behaviours that are laid down in adolescence are maintainedinto adulthood and influence lifelong health, say Viner andBarker on p 901. An efficient future health service should bebuilt on adolescents' engagement with their own health, butthere is much to be done to achieve this goal. Key public healthindicators, teenage pregnancy for example, have shown adversetrends or no change in the past 20 years. The authors proposea number of action points, such as developing separate healthpolicies for youth.