Protection in the physical and social environment
Making safe spaces for adolescent girls. Creating “safe spaces” is one response to the physical dangers that confront adolescent girls in many communities. These spaces provide a place of privacy and confidentiality that is acceptable to parents and caregivers and yet free from parental pressures. Regular meetings are an opportunity for skills-based health education, vocational skills training and financial literacy education. Often older adolescent girls serve as role models, or “mentors”.
Safety in the cities. Today’s adolescents are increasingly urban. Many live in slums and informal settlements. Urban environments may provide greater access to education and health care. At the same time, however, poor air quality, inadequate water and poor sanitation and hygiene conditions threaten the health of adolescents in cities. Also, the economic and social inequalities that city life exposes can create tension among populations, sparking violence, a major cause of morbidity and mortality among adolescents.
Preventing violence. The control of interpersonal violence is mostly the prerogative of the criminal justice sector, while efforts to address the consequences of such violence fall to the health sector (including emergency medicine, forensic medicine and mental health). In contrast, the prevention of violence has no obvious sectoral home because of the wide range of underlying biological and societal causes and risk factors that need to be addressed. There are examples from South Africa of how the health sector has catalysed multi-sectoral violence prevention efforts.12
South AfricaRoads must be safer. The hazards of the physical environment are at the root of much mortality and disability during the adolescent years. In high income countries, fatalities and injuries among adolescents are mostly related to road crashes and affect both drivers and passengers. In low and middle income countries, it is pedestrians and non-motorized road users who are most affected. The transport sector has a key role to play through road safety initiatives for non-motorized users, including adolescents, and ensuring that vehicle-related legislation and policies are implemented effectively
related to RTA WHO’s library of Public Service Announcement for Road SafetyThe health sector can work with transport authorities on the adoption and enforcement of regulations, as well as supporting awareness campaigns and collecting, analysing and disseminating data on injuries and deaths on the road.13
Issues of road safety have attracted the attention of young people themselves. YOURS (Youth for Road Safety) is a global, youth-led nongovernmental organization that encourages young people worldwide to become advocates and fosters young people’s capacities to make their communities safe.
When someone in my family, especially my mother, or a close friend shows their support for me.
female, 15-17, Paraguay
I think the way we know about the issues that affect us should be much better done, like at schools and on internet instead of just on hospitals.
female, 18-19, Brazil
I do not find enough time to perform sports and I find handy, unhealthy food in front of me
female, 18-19, Saudi Arabia
For me, to be in good health means above all to have a family. I think that health is not only a physical thing but also mental because if you are surrounded by family or by people who love you, that can allow you to always be in good health (to smile, to be in a good mood)
female, 18-19, Gabon
I think that schools should do more than sport classes to improve their students health. Teaching the students how to cook healthy meals would be one of those things.
female, 18-19, Germany
Ensure sexual education in all schools and give out contraceptives for free, as sexual issues are the biggest health problems faced by adolescents, venereal diseases, unwanted pregnancies, HIV.
Gender not specified, 15-17, Chile
Adolescents on what can be done to improve health services: Improve and create more facilities, such as more primary health care centres in schools, community centres (that work well); encourage sports and extracurricular activities to help adolescents clear their minds.
female, 18-19, Venezuela
Through school, as it is where we spend a lot of time, government initiatives of school wide health awareness should be somewhat compulsory, such as having speakers come to your school, organised by the government to choose from what organisation they come from, or your school, to speak about relevant health issues to students, from an understandable viewpoint. It is more effective than reading a pamphlet.
female, 15-17, Australia
I don’t talk about my difficulties. I use sports as a way to feel relief from all the bad things that have happened and happen to me, etc.
male, 18-19, Chile
Through school, as it is where we spend a lot of time, government initiatives of school wide health awareness should be somewhat compulsory, such as having speakers come to your school, organised by the government to choose from what organisation they come from, or your school, to speak about relevant health issues to students, from an understandable viewpoint. It is more effective than reading a pamphlet.
female, 15-17, Australia
School stresses me out, and as a result I have been careless with my health, my diet, etc.
female, 18-19, Peru
Life is difficult, especially when you’re young and you have to be sitting down all the time. I feel that my body is being destroyed at school because I am forced to stay seated all day.
male, 18-19, Canada
Wide-scale action promoting sport: built-up of the network of bicycle paths and bicycle rents, discounts to sports centres, support from teachers to students who participate in sport competitions, varied and more inclusive physical education classes (overweight or disabled students too frequently find excuses to avoid exercises) 2) Increasing the awareness of importance of physical health and its relation to mental condition - by school education and social campaigns 3) Creating alternatives - youth needs to understand that getting drunk or taking tobacco/other drugs is not a good way to build up one's position among peers.
female, 18-19, Poland
