Adolescence is a unique developmental stage distinct from both childhood and adulthood. The second decade of life offers unique strengths, including greater access to life's opportunities resulting from self-discovery and emerging independence. It also has special vulnerabilities, health concerns, and barriers for accessing health care. In the new millennium, it is timely to consider the conditions of adolescents today and how current and future trends are likely to affect the health of adolescents in the 21st century. Maximizing adolescent health is particularly important in light of increasing recognition that the health of adolescents is crucial to their well-being as adults.
Most adolescents are considered healthy when assessed by traditional medical markers. However, an increasing number of adolescents are exposed to deleterious environmental conditions and engage in risky behaviors that threaten their current and future health. Thus, the health threats for adolescents are primarily social and behavioral (Ozer, Brindis, Millstein, Knopf, & Irwin, 1998; U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, 1996).
Over the past decade there has been an unprecedented focus on the nation's youth. Several federal reports have focused on adolescents, with perhaps the most critical being the series developed by the former Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) in 1991: Adolescent Health: Volumes I–III, which served as an expansive assessment of the state of adolescent health as we entered the 1990s. Two of the documents' major recommendations focused on improving the environmental context of adolescents' lives and assuring access to health care for all youth.