E

Recommendations from Promoting Positive Adolescent Health Behaviors and Outcomes

Recommendations for Research

5-1: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should fund additional research aimed at identifying, measuring, and evaluating the effectiveness of specific core components of programs and interventions focused on promoting positive health behaviors and outcomes among adolescents.

5-2: The Division of Adolescent and School Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should

• update and expand the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) to include
  • out-of-school youth (e.g., homeless, incarcerated, dropped out), and
  • survey items that reflect a more comprehensive set of sexual risk behaviors with specific definitions; and
• conduct further research on the ideal setting and mode for administering the YRBS with today’s adolescents.

Recommendations for OASH Programs

5-3: The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should fund universal, holistic, multicomponent programs that meet all of the following criteria:

• promote and improve the health and well-being of the whole person, laying the foundation for specific, developmentally appropriate behavioral skills development;
• begin in early childhood and are offered during critical developmental windows, from childhood throughout adolescence;
• consider adolescent decision making, exploration, and risk taking as normative;
• engage diverse communities, public policy makers, and societal leaders to improve modifiable social and environmental determinants of health and well-being that disadvantage and stress young people and their families; and
• are theory driven and evidence based.