Background: Social capital is generally portrayed to be protective of adolescents' health and wellbeing against the effects of socioeconomic inequalities. However, few empirical evidence exist on this protective role of social capital regarding adolescents' wellbeing in the low-and middle-income country (LMIC) context. This study examines the potential for social capital to be a protective health resource by investigating whether social capital can mediate the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and wellbeing of Ghanaian adolescents. It also examines how SES and social capital relate to different dimensions of adolescents' wellbeing in different social contexts. Methods: The study employed a cross-sectional survey involving a randomly selected 2068 adolescents (13-18 years) from 15 schools (8 Senior and 7 Junior High Schools) in Ghana. Relationships were assessed using multivariate regression models. Results: Three measures of familial social capital (family sense of belonging, family autonomy support, and family control) were found to be important protective factors of both adolescents' life satisfaction and happiness against the effects of socioeconomic status. One measure of school social capital (school sense of belonging) was found to augment adolescents' wellbeing but played no mediating role in the SES-wellbeing relationship. A proportion of about 69 and 42% of the total effect of SES on happiness and life satisfaction were mediated by social capital respectively. Moreover, there were variations in how SES and social capital related to the different dimensions of adolescents' wellbeing. Conclusion: Social capital is a significant mechanism through which SES impacts the wellbeing of adolescents. Social capital is a potential protective health resource that can be utilised by public health policy to promote adolescents' wellbeing irrespective of socioeconomic inequalities. Moreover, the role of the family (home) in promoting adolescents' wellbeing is superior to that of school which prompts targeted policy interventions. For a holistic assessment of adolescents' subjective wellbeing, both life evaluations (life satisfaction) and positive emotions (happiness) should be assessed concomitantly.

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The health and well-being impact of COVID-19 on global development agendas has wildly been debated. The World Bank has reported that the poor will be hardest hit from the COVID-19 crisis, and that the pandemic could render about 49 million people including children and young people into extreme poverty in 2020. 1 Crucially, lowand middle-income countries (LMICs) would be greatly affected with almost half of the projected new poor (23 million) been in sub-Saharan Africa. 1 Sub-Saharan Africa again bears the highest COVID-19 risk factors according to the global Multidimensional Poverty Index with almost 90% of the population, 882 million people experiencing at least one COVID-19 risk factor. 2 Considering that the world's largest population, 'adolescents' reside in LMICs 3 suggests that most of the world's young population are at risk of the potential devastation of COVID-19. this vulnerable cohort. There should be social protection interventions targeting adolescents' social, economic and educational empowerment for, especially poor adolescents during the pandemic. This will possibly combat intergenerational poverty and give the next generation a healthy start in life particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. KEYWORDS adolescents, COVID-19 pandemic, health and well-being, lessons from previous pandemics, school closure CONFLICT OF INTEREST The author declares no potential conflict of interest.

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This article takes a health assets approach to extract policy lessons for Ghana’s present Child and Family Welfare Policy, introduced in 2014. We examine the role of Ghanaian adolescents’ socioeconomic status and family social capital in their subjective well-being using data obtained from a representative survey of adolescents (aged 13-18 years) in Ghana’s Upper West Region. Our empirical results revealed that various sub-components of family social capital, including family sense of belonging, autonomy support, control, and social support, varied with adolescents’ self-reported life satisfaction and happiness after controlling for their family socioeconomic status and other personal characteristics. Once family social capital was controlled for, socioeconomic status explained adolescents’ life satisfaction, but not their happiness. These findings confirm existing studies suggesting that family social capital can function as a protective ‘safety net’ for adolescents with low SES in the specific Ghanaian context. Consequently, this study contributes to the literature by arguing that, in order to develop Ghana’s Child and Family Welfare Policy further, adolescent ‘social empowerment’ ought to be accentuated alongside its current focus on enhancing household ‘economic empowerment’ via social protection interventions.

Despite the implementation of various national legal frameworks and global policies such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to combat violence against young people, family violence against young people is prevalent, especially in WHO African region. Although, research on child maltreatment, specifically, for young children has received considerable attention in Ghana recently, there is little research on adolescents' experiences of such family violence. In this paper, we report the experiences and perceptions of adolescents with respect to family violence they had suffered or witnessed, and analyze the socio-ecological factors and power dynamics at home that contribute to such violence. The study employs a qualitative approach and the data comprise focus group discussion with 56 adolescents from 14 schools in seven districts of Ghana. The findings show that several adolescents in Ghana feel unsafe at home. They experience physical, psychological, and sexual violence as well as exposure to intimate partner violence, exploitation, and neglect. These violent acts were severe, with dire consequences such as permanent impairment and suicide. Perpetrators include all types of carers. The violent acts are often surreptitious and poly-victimization is common. The results also reveal that three main socio-ecological factors perpetuate and legitimize family violence: patriarchy, the normalization of corporal punishment as a method of child discipline, and superstitious beliefs about health. In general, carers demonstrate their superiority and control over the adolescents in an authoritarian manner, thereby, making the adolescents powerless. Implications of the study for policy and practice are discussed.

African migrants in Hong Kong and the rest of Greater China are often confronted with numerous social and economic constraints. Notwithstanding, extant studies have not adequately examined how these challenges affect the psychological wellbeing of Hong Kong's African economic migrants specifically. Using a qualitative research design underpinned by the concept of diaspora space, this article discusses the social aspects of psychological wellbeing among African economic migrants in Hong Kong. Specifically, it shows how the attitudes of local Hong Kongers (本 地人) towards African economic migrants affect the psychological distress of the African migrants. The locals' attitudes influenced the Africans' psychological distress in three non-exclusive ways, namely confusion of personal and social identity (identity as black people); perceived discrimination; and difficulty in forming lasting relationships with the locals. The findings are discussed within the broader discourse of diasporic migration and wellbeing.

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