The health and wellbeing of young people in sub-Saharan Africa: an under-researched area?

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Abstract

A third of sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) population comprises persons aged 10–24 years. These youth are growing up in a context marked by pervasive poverty, limited educational opportunities, high HIV/AIDS prevalence, widespread conflict, and weak social controls. Published research on the broad issues that affect youth health and wellbeing in SSA is limited and centers heavily on sexual and reproductive health. In this commentary, we provide a broad overview of sub-Saharan African youth, highlight research gaps with respect to youth health and wellbeing, and describe potential avenues to develop the region’s research capacity on youth health and wellbeing.

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Most cited references 35

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Global burden of disease in young people aged 10-24 years: a systematic analysis.

Fiona M Gore, Paul J N Bloem, George C Patton … (2011)

Young people aged 10-24 years represent 27% of the world's population. Although important health problems and risk factors for disease in later life emerge in these years, the contribution to the global burden of disease is unknown. We describe the global burden of disease arising in young people and the contribution of risk factors to that burden. We used data from WHO's 2004 Global Burden of Disease study. Cause-specific disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for young people aged 10-24 years were estimated by WHO region on the basis of available data for incidence, prevalence, severity, and mortality. WHO member states were classified into low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries, and into WHO regions. We estimated DALYs attributable to specific global health risk factors using the comparative risk assessment method. DALYs were divided into years of life lost because of premature mortality (YLLs) and years lost because of disability (YLDs), and are presented for regions by sex and by 5-year age groups. The total number of incident DALYs in those aged 10-24 years was about 236 million, representing 15·5% of total DALYs for all age groups. Africa had the highest rate of DALYs for this age group, which was 2·5 times greater than in high-income countries (208 vs 82 DALYs per 1000 population). Across regions, DALY rates were 12% higher in girls than in boys between 15 and 19 years (137 vs 153). Worldwide, the three main causes of YLDs for 10-24-year-olds were neuropsychiatric disorders (45%), unintentional injuries (12%), and infectious and parasitic diseases (10%). The main risk factors for incident DALYs in 10-24-year-olds were alcohol (7% of DALYs), unsafe sex (4%), iron deficiency (3%), lack of contraception (2%), and illicit drug use (2%). The health of young people has been largely neglected in global public health because this age group is perceived as healthy. However, opportunities for prevention of disease and injury in this age group are not fully exploited. The findings from this study suggest that adolescent health would benefit from increased public health attention. None. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Health of the world's adolescents: a synthesis of internationally comparable data.

George C Patton, Carolyn Coffey, Claudia Cappa … (2012)

Adolescence and young adulthood offer opportunities for health gains both through prevention and early clinical intervention. Yet development of health information systems to support this work has been weak and so far lagged behind those for early childhood and adulthood. With falls in the number of deaths in earlier childhood in many countries and a shifting emphasis to non-communicable disease risks, injuries, and mental health, there are good reasons to assess the present sources of health information for young people. We derive indicators from the conceptual framework for the Series on adolescent health and assess the available data to describe them. We selected indicators for their public health importance and their coverage of major health outcomes in young people, health risk behaviours and states, risk and protective factors, social role transitions relevant to health, and health service inputs. We then specify definitions that maximise international comparability. Even with this optimisation of data usage, only seven of the 25 indicators, covered at least 50% of the world's adolescents. The worst adolescent health profiles are in sub-Saharan Africa, with persisting high mortality from maternal and infectious causes. Risks for non-communicable diseases are spreading rapidly, with the highest rates of tobacco use and overweight, and lowest rates of physical activity, predominantly in adolescents living in low-income and middle-income countries. Even for present global health agendas, such as HIV infection and maternal mortality, data sources are incomplete for adolescents. We propose a series of steps that include better coordination and use of data collected across countries, greater harmonisation of school-based surveys, further development of strategies for socially marginalised youth, targeted research into the validity and use of these health indicators, advocating for adolescent-health information within new global health initiatives, and a recommendation that every country produce a regular report on the health of its adolescents. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Cohort Profile: Mandela's children: the 1990 Birth to Twenty study in South Africa.

Linda Richter, Shane Norris, John Pettifor … (2007)

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Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Int Health Hum Rights

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Int Health Hum Rights

Title: BMC International Health and Human Rights

Publisher: BioMed Central

ISSN (Electronic): 1472-698X

Publication date Collection: 2013

Publication date (Electronic): 13 February 2013

Volume: 13

Page: 11

Affiliations

[1 ]African Population and Health Research Center, Inc., APHRC Campus, Manga Close, off Kirawa Road, P. O. Box 10787–00100, Nairobi, Kenya

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Publisher ID: 1472-698X-13-11

DOI: 10.1186/1472-698X-13-11

PMC ID: 3583739

PubMed ID: 23406522

SO-VID: 2d26fead-6275-4bf5-81c5-08cd0131cfe2

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This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The health and wellbeing of young people in sub-Saharan Africa: an under-researched area?

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Most cited references 35

Global burden of disease in young people aged 10-24 years: a systematic analysis.

Health of the world's adolescents: a synthesis of internationally comparable data.

Cohort Profile: Mandela's children: the 1990 Birth to Twenty study in South Africa.

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