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The purpose of this paper is to assess the situation of accessibility to reproductive health rights, and the conditional factors of accessibility to such rights of adolescents.

A qualitative method was used to extract information from 80 informants. Data were collected through in-depth interview, focus group discussion, observation, data recording, audio recording and the review of related documents during August to October 2016.

Adolescents had not accessed to their right on informing of their decision making; information and education; health; confidentiality and privacy; and treating with equity and no discrimination. Also, the conditional factors influenced to the accessibility on such rights were lacking of knowledge on reproductive health and negative attitude toward this matter among the people concerned. There were still no regulations or policies on the performance of authority agencies and the factors on social dimensions, traditions, customs, sexual culture and religion.

The findings from this study would be a help to promote the accessibility for adolescents to reproductive health rights under the Prevention and Solution of Adolescent Pregnancy Problem Act, B.E. 2559 (2016) specific on standard criteria reproductive health services from hospitals and the involvement from Ministry of Education for the development of sex life skill and reproductive health for the teacher.

Mental health problems make a significant contribution to morbidity and mortality in adolescents worldwide. To address mental health in adolescents policy response should intertwine the life course approach and the ecological model that positions adolescents in the context of multifactorial influences. The purpose of this paper is to describe policy response at four levels: multisector policies and interventions, health systems policies and interventions, evidence-based clinical interventions and actions to monitor progress. It aims to analyse the implications for adolescent mental health of key recent global commitments including the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health.

Multisector policies and interventions on determinants of adolescent mental health and well-being are drawn from the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health. Key health systems actions are derived from the Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan (2013-2020). In both cases, policies and interventions are made specific for provisions relevant to adolescents. Examples of implementation of policies and interventions are drawn from a World Health Organization (WHO) review of national policy documents found in WHO MiNDbank. A list of indicators to monitor progress is being proposed based on Mental Health Atlas and WHO indicators for adolescent health.

With some notable exceptions, the mental health of adolescents is not adequately addressed by national health policies. There is a considerable body of evidence on the effectiveness of policies and interventions, and recent global commitments give new hope for promoting adolescent mental health through a multisectoral response, within which the health sector has an important role to play. Global reporting mechanisms, including the Mental Health Atlas, should be “adolescent-sensitive”, meaning that adolescent specific impact, outcomes, inputs and determinants should be measured, reported and acted upon.

This paper analyses the meaning specific to adolescents in the policies and interventions promoted in the SDGs, the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health and the Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan (2013-2020). For the first time a four-levels policy response specific to adolescent mental health is put together: multisector policies and interventions, health systems policies and interventions, evidence-based clinical interventions and actions to monitor progress.

This study aims to gain a comprehensive understanding of adolescent’s experiences of individual school social work counselling in Swedish elementary schools.

The study encompasses interviews with 16 adolescents about their experiences of individual counselling with school social workers (SSWs). The data was analysed using conventional content analysis.

The main result was the adolescents’ desire “to navigate to shore” to speak freely about their whole lives with a professional SSW and find a “ safe haven,” […] where a trusting professional cared for and comforted them in counselling. The counselling contact contributed to increased knowledge about oneself. The results reveal the importance of the SSWs paying attention and listening to the adolescents’ narratives. The creation of a coherent life narrative enables to finally end counselling and “Cast off.”

The results highlight the importance of Swedish SSWs focusing on individual counselling sessions with adolescents to provide a setting for growth.

This study aims to examine the effects of character body size, subject body size and product type on female adolescents’ attitudes toward the character. Given prior research showing that adolescents identify more strongly with those whom they view as similar to themselves, it is possible that heavy and obese adolescents will react more favorably to plus-size ad characters.

Two studies were conducted, one with females aged 12–14 and a second with females aged 15–17. Based on their body mass index, subjects were classified as of small/average size or overweight/obese. Ads featured either a thin, average-size or plus-size character, and promoted either a healthful or an unhealthful snack item.

In general, small/average size female adolescents responded more favorably toward thin characters, whereas their overweight/obese counterparts responded more favorably toward plus-size characters. Moreover, subjects’ responses were not moderated by the nutritional value (healthful vs unhealthful) of the product being advertised.

To effectively promote healthy foods to overweight/obese adolescents, it may be advantageous to incorporate plus-size characters. Additional research is needed, however, to determine whether this approach can effectively influence brand attitudes and consumption behaviors.

As obesity rates continue to rise, it has become vitally important to encourage healthier food choices among youth. To develop effective communication strategies, marketers need to better understand how young consumers respond to various advertising cues.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the effect of character size and subject size on female adolescents’ attitudes toward the character.

This study aims to examine adolescents’ social media environment connected to unhealthy food marketing. As social media have become a ubiquitous part of young people’s everyday lives, marketers have also shifted their focus to these channels. Literature on this phenomenon is still scarce and often takes a quite narrow view of the role of marketing in social media. Furthermore, the experiences of the adolescents are seldom considered.

Using a sociocultural approach and netnographic methodology, this study presents findings from a research project conducted in Finland. The data consist of both social media material and focus group interviews with adolescents.

The findings elaborate on unhealthy food marketing to adolescents in social media from two perspectives: sociocultural representations of unhealthy foods in social media marketing and social media influencers connecting with adolescents.

The study broadens and deepens the current understanding of unhealthy food marketing to adolescents taking place in social media. The study introduces a novel perspective to the topic by looking at it as a sociocultural phenomenon.

The current research aimed to examine the prevalence of Instagram posts featuring ultra-processed products targeted at adolescents in Uruguay and hence investigate the frequency of such posts among a vulnerable consumer segment in a country that cannot be classified as WEIRD (i.e. Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic).

The study relied on a cross-sectional content analysis. A total of 2,014 Instagram posts promoting ultraprocessed products or brands commercializing such products, generated by 118 Instagram accounts between August 15th, 2020, and February 15th, 2021, were analyzed. Nine indicators of food marketing targeted at adolescents were selected to identify posts targeted at this age segment. Inductive coding was used to describe the content of the posts. Descriptive statistics and generalized linear models were used to analyze the data.

In total, 17.6% of the posts were identified as targeted at adolescents. Graphic design and adolescent language were the most prevalent indicators of marketing targeted at adolescents, followed by explicit references to adolescents or young adults and memes. Posts identified as targeted at adolescents mainly promoted snacks and discretionary foods. Differences in the content of posts identified as targeted and not targeted at adolescents were observed.

The analysis was restricted to one social media platform in one country during a limited period of time, which limits the generalizability of the findings to other media platforms, samples and settings.

Results stress the need to implement digital food marketing regulations to reduce exposure of adolescents to the deleterious effects of stemming from marketing of unhealthy foods and provide empirical evidence to inform their development.

The study breaks new ground by analyzing the prevalence and exploring the characteristics and content of Instagram posts promoting ultra-processed products to adolescents in an under-researched geographic area of the world.

Adolescence is an important life stage including physical, emotional and social changes that make adolescents vulnerable to mental health issues. To face these emotional and behavioral problems, adolescents may use various coping strategies. This exploratory qualitative study aimed to better understand the coping strategies when adolescents face mental health difficulties, the reasons why some adolescents find it difficult to seek social support and/or professional care and which interventions they would find efficient to improve adolescents' mental health.

The study included 28 participants aged between 12–19 years old. Four online focus groups (FGs) separated by gender and age were performed between March and April 2021, during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland.

The results show that several strategies put forward by participants did not include talking about their problems with others. Reducing the stigma and taking the adolescents' mental health seriously would make it easier for adolescents to talk about their problems to other people. Overall, participants considered that doing leisure-time activities and going out with friends were the best way to reduce stressful situations and mental health problems. For all aspects of health, including the mental one, it is important that policies promote the access to sports and arts activities for all the adolescents.

This study explored adolescents' coping strategies and their opinions on intervention for dealing with potential mental health problems, an issue that is still taboo for some adolescents.

There are insufficient health and nutrition education interventions targeting adolescent females in rural contexts in Indonesia. There is also a paucity of research evaluating the impact of implemented programs. This paper aims to develop and test the validity of a tailored education module to improve the knowledge, attitude and skills of adolescent females on health and nutrition.

The study was conducted between 2019 and 2023 in Ban Village, Karangasem Regency. This study used an explanatory sequential mixed methods research approach consisting of three stages: formative research using mixed methods, validation and review of the module by experts using the Delphi technique and pilot testing of the module. In the formative research stage, there were 40 female adolescent respondents implicated, in the validation and module review stage, there were 14 nutrition and public health experts implicated, and in the pilot test, a new cohort of 60 female adolescents were recruited. Validity was assessed by exploring the feasibility, reliability and linguistics of the module. The Delphi score was measured by the mean score and standard deviation.

The Health and Balanced Nutrition Education Module was impactful in improving the health and nutrition of female adolescents in Ban Village. The validation score of the module shows that from the total score of 4, construct reliability obtained a score of 3.18 with a 0.35 standard deviation. The construct feasibility and language revealed better scores, which were 3.31 with 0.4 standard deviations and 3.29 with 0.46 standard deviations, respectively. After dissemination of the module, participants’ mean score of knowledge on the importance of balanced nutrition significantly improved by 68.8% (p-value = 0.0001).

The Health and Balance Nutrition Education Module has been proven to improve the awareness of adolescents on balanced nutrition. Nevertheless, this study also has limitations due to the small number of respondents attending the information sessions and the pilot testing. Further studies should consider using implementation research for scale-up in other parts of Bali.

This study provides insight for health and nutrition educators for creating modules that better align with the context and information needs of the target group particularly for adolescents in rural areas, which are seldom neglected.

This study indicates that the trialed education materials can play a role in improving female adolescents’ knowledge of nutrition throughout their life cycle and their role in preventing stunting and noncommunicable diseases in later adult life.

The health and nutrition module trialed in the study is tailored specifically to the context of rural areas of Bali and validated by public health experts, then tested with 60 adolescents.

During the Great Recession, the increase in Greece's unemployment rate was the highest in the European Union (EU). However, there exists no multi-variate study which has assessed the association between parental unemployment and adolescents' grades. The present study aimed to examine whether parental unemployment is associated with deterioration in adolescents' grades during periods of economic decline.

The study utilised panel data from the same upper high schools in the periods 2011–2013 and 2017–2019 to assess whether the grades of adolescents were associated with parental unemployment. A variety of empirical specifications and robustness tests were employed to offer better informed evaluations.

The exogeneity of parental unemployment with respect to adolescents' grade was confirmed. The analysis revealed that parental unemployment was associated with a decline in adolescents' grades. Periods of economic decline, i.e. in 2011–2013, were found to be associated with deterioration in adolescents' grades. Moreover, during periods of economic decline, parental unemployment was associated with deterioration in adolescents' grades. Furthermore, parental unemployment was associated with lower adolescents' grades for those households that were not homeowners and whose schools were located in working-class areas. The outcomes were found to be robust, even after including information for government expenditure on education and social protection.

This is the first Greek study, and amongst the first international studies, to evaluate whether parental unemployment can lead to a deterioration in adolescents' grades during an economic decline. The potential long-lasting effects of parental unemployment on children's human capital should be considered by policymakers, as should educational interventions to support households experiencing adverse economic conditions.

Mental disorders are the main cause of morbidity among 10–19 year-olds and current research indicates that youth mental health problems are rising, especially with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This exploratory qualitative study aimed to gather the opinions of adolescents in Switzerland on the emotional and behavioral problems the adolescents may currently face.

The authors' study included 28 participants aged between 12 and 19 years-old. Four online focus groups (FGs) separated by gender and age were performed between March and April 2021, during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland.

The concept of mental health was very vague for the participants. School was reported as a major source of stressors and may have negative effects on participants' mental health. This distress has been amplified with the COVID-19 pandemic and the perceived instability of participants' future. Furthermore, participants reported that poor body image was a major issue threatening the mental health of adolescents, especially among females and on social media. Finally, participants considered that social relations, more particularly friendships, were one of the main protective factors for mental health, even if peer pressure was also considered as a stress factor. Given the fact that the concept of mental health was very abstract for the participants, increased levels of mental health literacy are needed.

This study collects adolescents' opinions on current emotional issues adolescents may face without restricting the domains discussed and considering the particular pandemic and post-pandemic periods.