Adolescent Well-Being: A Definition and Conceptual Framework

• Published in: Journal of adolescent health Vol. 67; no. 4; pp. 472 - 476
• Main Authors: Ross, David A., Hinton, Rachael, Melles-Brewer, Meheret, Engel, Danielle, Zeck, Willibald, Fagan, Lucy, Herat, Joanna, Phaladi, Gogontlejang, Imbago-Jácome, David, Anyona, Pauline, Sanchez, Alicia, Damji, Nazneen, Terki, Fatiha, Baltag, Valentina, Patton, George, Silverman, Avi, Fogstad, Helga, Banerjee, Anshu, Mohan, Anshu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01-10-2020; Elsevier BV; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescent Health; Adolescents; Child development; Children & youth; Health care; Health status; Humans; Maternal characteristics; Mothers; Sustainability; Sustainable development; Teenagers; Well being; Women
• ISSN: 1054-139X; 1879-1972
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.06.042

In 2015, all the member states of the United Nations signed up to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 3 aims to "ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages." Central to this goal are the concepts of health and well-being. This is at least as true for adolescents (10-19 years) as for any other age group. The United Nations Secretary General's Global Strategy for Women's, Children's and Adolescents' Health (2016-2030), which aims to "ensure health and well-being for every woman, child and adolescent" within the context of the SDGs, recognizes that adolescents will be central to the overall success of the strategy). Similarly, the World Health Organization (WHO)-United Nations International Children's Fund-Lancet Commission calls for children (defined as <18 years of age) to be at the center of the SDGs. A recent call was also made for Universal Health Coverage to take a comprehensive approach to addressing the health and well-being needs of adolescents. As a contribution to answering these questions, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and the WHO are leading an initiative of the United Nations H6+ Technical Working Group on Adolescent Health and Weil-Being to develop a consensus framework for defining, programming, and measuring adolescent well-being. This framework adds to recent work to develop a Nurturing Care Framework for early child development. It is also part of a broader program of work that includes a multistakeholder Call to Action to prioritize adolescent well-being, building momentum for a 2022 "Global Summit on Adolescents," which will review progress and aim to increase political and financial investments for this population group.