Adolescent Health - Coming of Age

22nd IAAH European Conference 2019

In September, the UK Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the US Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine came together for an unprecedented event to celebrate the concurrent Presidencies of UK leaders Professor Russell Viner (RCPCH) and Professor Deborah Christie (SAHM). IAAH joined the UK national organisations as an organising partner for two days of plenaries and workshop discussions.

On the first day, the provision of appropriate adolescent health services was the overarching theme. The topic of developmentally appropriate healthcare and its links to transition and transfer of care provided some excellent points for reflection. This was very topical in the context of a recent paper by our IAAH President (Susan Sawyer) and Vice-President for North America (Jon Klein) that reports the wide international variation in the age of transfer from paediatric to adult health services. In short, if we commit to a culture of developmentally appropriate healthcare – which is not tied to chronological age but paced by physical and psychosocial development – then it would lay out a path from early adolescence seamlessly to transition to adult services when the time is right for that individual.

The IAAH workshop took place on the second day of the meeting, organised in partnership with the UNESCO Chair Global Health & Education. Professors Chris Bonell and Helen Weiss, both from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, presented two RCTs of school-based health interventions in different contexts – the Project Respect intervention in UK schools and the SEHER intervention in Indian schools. Common themes emerged in their findings, including the importance of effective staff-student dialogue and the challenges of implementation against a backdrop of low resource and overburdened teachers.

Professor Didier Jourdan, chair holder UNESCO Chair Global Health & Education, based at the University of Clermont-Auvergne in France, then made a presentation to stimulate participants’ workshop discussion about the roles of health professionals in supporting healthy schools. From his experience and expertise in education andpublic health, he emphasised that the success of a holistic approach to health and attainment depends on understanding the motivation and drivers in schools. All too often, health-promoting interventions are disconnected from schools’ core mission, and coherence with teachers’ daily work is overlooked. The workshop participants discussed their own contributions in schools, which ranged from providing health services through to delivering health education and giving careers advice.

The UNESCO Chair GHE initiative champions truly intersectoral work, where there is a shared agenda and approach guiding the work of health services, public health and education. IAAH will be supporting this work through the term of the project. On 17^th October, IAAH contributed as a partner to a webinar introduction to the work of the Chair, and on 20^th November there will be a pre-conference event at the European Public Health Conference where IAAH will take part in a roundtable discussion to reflect on new perspectives guiding intersectoral work. IAAH members can join the Chair’s community to get regular project updates in English or French.