Reviews
Scaling-up Normative Change Interventions for Adolescent and Youth Reproductive Health: An Examination of the Evidence
Adolescent and youth reproductive health (AYRH) outcomes are influenced by factors beyond individual control. Increasingly, interventions are seeking to influence community-level normative change to support healthy AYRH behaviors. While evidence is growing of the effectiveness of AYRH interventions that include normative change components, understanding on how to achieve scale-up and wider impact of these programs remains limited. We analyzed peer-reviewed and gray literature from 2000 to 2017 describing 42 AYRH interventions with community-based normative change components that have scaled-up in low/middle-income countries.Not Playing Around: Gaming Disorder in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11)
Adolescents are among the most avid consumers of online digital entertainment, particularly video games and related online activities (e.g., live streaming, eSports broadcasts). Global research data indicate that most adolescents report past-year gaming usage across a range of devices, including personal computers, laptops, consoles, and, increasingly as the technology has become more sophisticated, smartphones [1–3]. Internationally, average gaming usage among adolescents has increased over the last three decades, particularly among males.Health for the World's Adolescents: A Second Chance in the Second Decade
The World Health Organization has produced a multimedia, interactive online report entitled Health for the World's Adolescents: A Second Chance in the Second Decade. The report provides an overview of global and regional estimates of adolescent mortality and disability-adjusted life years, disaggregated by age, sex, and cause, and country-level data on health-related behaviors and conditions among adolescents. It outlines the reasons why adolescence is a unique period in the life course requiring special attention and synthesizes current thinking about the determinants that underlie the differences in health status between adolescents.Neurobiology of Food Addiction and Adolescent Obesity Prevention in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Adolescent obesity has become an increasingly urgent issue in low- and middle-income countries. Recent relevant advances include the application of the neurobiology of addiction to food addiction and obesity. The biochemistry of the etiology of obesity indicates the need for multilevel interventions that go beyond simple behavioral approaches. Additional research on the neurobiology of food addiction and adolescent obesity in low- and middle-income countries, as well as program evaluations that examine the biochemical effects of complex interventions, is urgently needed.
