Investing in adolescent healthcare: reducing risk for global impact.
DOI:10.1097/MOP.0000000000000373 Suicide, homicide, substance abuse, unprotected sex, homelessness These are a few of the harrowing words that may come to mind when thinking about Adolescent Medicine, but providing optimal healthcare for adolescents is a meaningful endeavor with significant opportunity for prevention, education, and collaboration. In addition to experimentation, adolescence is a time for identity formation, psychological maturation, exploration, uncertainty, and realization. Being a part of this essential developmental process for adolescents, through parenting, teaching, clinical care, advocacy, or research, is an extremely rewarding and worthwhile pursuit. Worldwide, the adolescent population is larger than ever with health concerns best addressed by those who view them not as large children or as unmyelinated adults, but as a unique group with specific health needs and perspectives. Despite the struggles we encounter when caring for teen patients, there is much to celebrate. At the annual Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine conference in March 2016, clinicians, researchers, and policy makers from around the world convened to highlight the latest advances in adolescent healthcare. For example, with increasing use of the human papilloma virus vaccine, successful herd immunity has been demonstrated, and rates of human papilloma virus are decreasing [1] Telehealth is successfully being utilized to educate those adolescents in remote underserved areas [2] A crisis text message hotline offers a novel 24/7 text message service for individuals in mental health crisis, to support them in their time of need (www.crisistextline.org) US alcohol policies are associated with reduced teen motor vehicle deaths [3] Finally, with readily available long acting reversible contraceptives, teen pregnancies are being reduced in the USA [4] This has significant implications in the USA and globally. Of the 74 million unintended pregnancies in the developing world, 30% are related to contraceptive failure, and most are in women under the age of 25 years [5] With improved access to long acting reversible contraceptives worldwide, life trajectories for teen and young adult women could be drastically altered.
Current opinion in pediatrics