Priority Areas for Adolescent Health Measurement

Abstract

Purpose We establish priority areas for adolescent health measurement and identify current gaps, aiming to focus resources on the most relevant data to improve adolescent health. Methods We collected four critical inputs to inform priority setting: perspectives of youth representatives, country priorities, disease burden, and existing measurement efforts. Health areas identified from the inputs were grouped, mapped, and summarized according to their frequency in the inputs. Using a Delphi-like approach, international experts then selected core, expanded, and context-specific priority areas for adolescent health measurement from all health areas identified. Results Across the four inputs, we identified 99 measurement areas relevant to adolescent health and grouped them under six domains: policies, programs, laws; systems performance and interventions; health determinants; health behaviors and risks; subjective well-being; and health outcomes and conditions. Areas most frequently occurring were mental health and weight status in youth representatives' opinions; sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS in country policies and perspectives; road injury, self-harm, skin diseases, and mental disorders in the disease burden analysis; and adolescent fertility in measurement initiatives. Considering all four inputs, experts selected 33 core, 19 expanded, and 6 context-specific adolescent health measurement areas. Conclusion The adolescent health measurement landscape is vast, covering a large variety of topics. The foci of the measurement initiatives we reviewed do not reflect the most important health areas according to youth representatives' or country-level perspectives, or the adolescent disease burden. Based on these inputs, we propose a set of priority areas to focus national and global adolescent health measurement.

Assessing the Vulnerability and Risks of Adolescent Girls and Young Women in East and Southern Africa: A Preliminary Review of the Tools in Use

“…Countries can expect to benefit from global initiatives to standardize the definition and measurement of core indicators of adolescent health and age disaggregation [ 27 , 28 ]. These will provide greater consistency and validity to aggregate data about vulnerability and risks.…”

A Scoping Review of Adolescent Health Indicators

“…Third, we mapped the indicators as per the previously identified GAMA core adolescent health measurement areas. These steps, which build on work detailed in a previous publication [ 12 ], are summarized in the following text.…”

“…These efforts, together with numerous others, address what has been perceived as a long-standing deficit of indicators related to adolescents globally [ 11 ] by highlighting critical topics and advancing adolescent-specific indicators such as those relating to life satisfaction and mental health. Although these developments have helped to advance the long-neglected adolescent measurement field, the increase in both proposed indicators and measurement initiatives, however, has come about with little coordination, as previously noted [ 12 , 13 ]. The result has been inconsistent across initiatives, including long-standing indicators, as well as a substantial number of new indicators, some of which are poorly defined and difficult to measure, whereas gaps in the topics addressed remain.…”

“…A primary goal of the GAMA Advisory Group is to identify a set of priority adolescent health indicators, on which robust measurement standards will be built and harmonized guidance will be developed. Two work streams were determined as necessary first steps toward this goal: (1) identify measurement domains and identify core areas for adolescent health measurement globally [ 12 ] and (2) compile available indicators related to these core measurement areas. The purpose of this article is to map existing indicators for adolescent health, assess what they measure, and highlight overlap across initiatives and measurement gaps.…”

The Importance of Mental Health Measurement to Improve Global Adolescent Health

“…GAMA's activities to date include (1) a systematic selection of priority areas for adolescent health measurement, to focus resources on the most important health issues for adolescents, as described elsewhere [20]; (2) a mapping of over 400 indicators used for measurement of these priority areas; and (3) an on-going systematic selection of core indicators from all those mapped.…”