The NRC/IOM’s Adolescent Health Services: Highlights and Considerations for State Health Policymakers
Sep, 2009
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ReportIn May 2006, the National Research Council/Institute of Medicine’s (NRC/IOM’s) Board on Children, Youth and Families (BCYF) convened the Committee on Adolescent Health Care Services and Models of Care for Treatment, Prevention, and Healthy Development. With funding from The Atlantic Philanthropies, the committee conducted a study of health services for adolescents ages 10-19 in the United States and issued a report, Adolescent Health Services: Missing Opportunities.1 The National Academy for State Health Policy has written this paper based upon that report to highlight aspects of the publication most relevant for and applicable to state policymakers, who play an important role in improving adolescent health.
Adolescents comprise a growing percentage of the total U.S. population, with increasing racial and ethnic diversity. While traditionally adolescents have been overlooked in health care and public policy for a variety of reasons, adolescence is a critical stage of development and the health behaviors formed during this time often shape a person’s health over an entire lifespan. Adolescents’ health problems are primarily behavioral and environmental, which means adolescents are in particular need of services in the areas of mental health, reproductive and sexual health, oral health, and substance use treatment and prevention.
The adolescent health care system suffers from problems similar to the rest of the U.S. health care system, including a heightened focus on acute and episodic care, and fragmentation that causes specialty services to be unaffordable or inaccessible. States, in their roles as purchasers, regulators, and coordinators, have the opportunity.
To read the full report, click here.