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Objectives
Little is known about the impact of recessions on young people’s socioeconomic inequalities in health. This study investigates the impact of the economic recession in terms of youth unemployment on socioeconomic inequalities in psychological health complaints among adolescents across Europe and North America.
Methods
Data from the WHO collaborative ‘Health Behaviour in School-aged Children’ (HBSC) study were collected in 2005/06 (N = 160,830) and 2009/10 (N = 166,590) in 31 European and North American countries. Logistic multilevel models were used to assess the contribution of youth unemployment in 2009/10 (enduring recession) and the change in youth unemployment (2005–2010) to adolescent psychological health complaints and socioeconomic inequalities in complaints in 2009/10.
Results
Youth unemployment during the recession is positively related to psychological health complaints, but not to inequalities in complaints. Changes in youth unemployment (2005–2010) were not associated with adolescents’ psychological health complaints, whereas greater inequalities in complaints were found in countries with greater increases in youth unemployment.
Conclusions
This study highlights the need to tackle the impact of increasing unemployment on adolescent health and health inequalities during economic recessions.
BACKGROUND:
Health literacy is of increasing importance in public health research. It is a necessary pre-condition for the involvement in decisions about health and health care and related to health outcomes. Knowledge about limited health literacy in different age groups is crucial to better target public health interventions for subgroups of the population. However, little is known about health literacy in Germany. The study therefore assesses the prevalence of limited health literacy and associated factors among different age groups.
METHODS:
The Health Literacy Survey Germany is a cross-sectional study with 2,000 participants aged 15 years or older in private households. Perceived health literacy was assessed via computer-assisted personal interviews using the HLS-EU-Q-47 questionnaire. Descriptive analyses, chi-square tests and odds ratios were performed stratified for different age groups.
RESULTS:
The population affected by limited perceived health literacy increases by age. Of the respondents aged 15-29 years, 47.3 % had limited perceived health literacy and 47.2 % of those aged 30-45 years, whereas 55.2 % of the respondents aged 46-64 years and 66.4 % aged 65 years and older showed limited perceived health literacy. In all age groups, limited perceived health literacy was associated with limited functional health literacy, low social status, and a high frequency of doctor visits.
CONCLUSIONS:
The results suggest a need to further investigate perceived health literacy in all phases of the life-course. Particular attention should be devoted to persons with lower social status, limited functional health literacy and/or a high number of doctor visits in all age groups.
This paper reviews life course approaches applied in epidemiology, sociology and psychology and proposes a theoretical framework that integrates the concept of socialisation. We argue that the paradigmatic principles of interdisciplinary life course research (human agency, timing in lives, linked lives and historical context) provide a strong basis for a more holistic and theory-driven view of the life course and its interdependent pathways. The ´agency within structure´ paradigm on which these principles are based is an essential part of socialisation theory. We emphasize that socialisation theory has the potential to act as a theoretical link between social science and epidemiology, because it offers a multi-causal framework to illuminate the association between social structure and health across the life course. In order to better understand the development of health and health inequalities in a life course perspective, an interdisciplinary approach is required. The increased attention to socialisation principles might open new dialogue and empirical research perspectives for health sociology and epidemiology. Keywords: ageing, health, life course, social inequalities, socialisation theory
This study aims to determine whether educational differentiation (i.e. early and long tracking to different school types) relate to socioeconomic inequalities in adolescent smoking. Data were collected from the WHO-Collaborative 'Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC)' study 2005/2006, which included 48,025 15-year-old students (Nboys = 23,008, Ngirls = 25,017) from 27 European and North American countries. Socioeconomic position was measured using the HBSC family affluence scale. Educational differentiation was determined by the number of different school types, age of selection, and length of differentiated curriculum at the country-level. We used multilevel logistic regression to assess the association of daily smoking and early smoking initiation predicted by family affluence, educational differentiation, and their interactions. Socioeconomic inequalities in both smoking outcomes were larger in countries that are characterised by a lower degree of educational differentiation (e.g. Canada, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom) than in countries with higher levels of educational differentiation (e.g. Austria, Belgium, Hungary and The Netherlands). This study found that high educational differentiation does not relate to greater relative inequalities in smoking. Features of educational systems are important to consider as they are related to overall prevalence in smoking and smoking inequalities in adolescence.
The cutaneous carotenoid concentration correlates with the overall antioxidant status of a person and can be seen as biomarker for nutrition and lifestyle. 50 high school students were spectroscopically measured for their cutaneous carotenoid concentrations initially in a static phase, followed by an intervention phase with biofeedback of their measured values, living a healthy lifestyle and on healthy food this time. The volunteers showed higher carotenoid concentrations than found in previous studies. A significant correlation of healthy lifestyle habits and a high antioxidant status could be determined. Subjects improved their nutritional habits and significantly increased their carotenoid concentration during intervention. Follow-up five months later showed a consolidation of the increase. The investigations show that a healthy diet and a well-balanced lifestyle correlate with a high cutaneous antioxidant concentration and that spectroscopic biofeedback measurement of cutaneous carotenoids as part of an integrated prevention program is a feasible and effective means to raise the health awareness in adolescents.
Young women, and not young men, acquire the privileged diplomas offered by the educational system, and it is they who obtain the more promising career prospects. In this paper, we seek to identify factors that account for the declining school performance of boys and young men. After reviewing and analysing the international literature on gender and education, we integrate various explanatory approaches into a comprehensive socialisation model. The model focuses on the developmental tasks young men face during adolescence. Our central thesis is that the declining school performance of young men cannot be fully explained by their failure to cope with the developmental task ‘qualification’. Rather, the three other central clusters of developmental tasks – ‘social attachment’, ‘regeneration’, and ‘participation’ – have to be incorporated. The crucial implication is that supporting young men at school will show only limited results. Rather, to improve the school performance of young men, it is also necessary to address their deficits in coping with the other developmental tasks.
PURPOSE:
Adherence to dental preventive programmes in young adults is low. The aim of the present longitudinal study was to evaluate whether tutoring peers can be a compliance-enhancing tool or not.
METHODS:
In Part 1, two randomly selected classes (49 female students, mean age 19.8 + or - 2.3 years) were taught adult toothbrushing technique (the modified Bass technique) in a project-like manner. After the course, knowledge was tested using a class test, and compliance was evaluated using anonymous quantitative questionnaires. Compliance was defined as a reported degree of change from the easy-to-learn childhood toothbrushing techniques to the more efficient and challenging Bass technique. In Part 2 of the present longitudinal study, the compliance of these students was re-evaluated after having developed and applied themselves a programme of how to tutor peers in oral health. Re-evaluation of compliance was performed after 3 and 9 months.
RESULTS:
In Part 1, 28.5% of the students were compliant after 1 week. Compared with Part 1, the compliance in Part 2 was significantly higher (P u 0.001), both after 3 months (90%) and after 9 months (82%).
CONCLUSIONS:
Tutoring peers can significantly enhance the compliance over a period of 9 months. Tutoring can function as a form of empowerment and can establish a strong sustained health engagement. Tutoring peers in health-related subjects can readily be implemented in schools and might be an additional means of oral health promotion with fewer additional costs.
In highly developed countries, the adolescent phase of life is expanding more and more. The consequences are status insecurity and inconsistency. A side effect is that adolescence is no longer clearly separable as demarcated biographical stage from adulthood. In this paper, we argue that the developmental tasks of a typical adolescent and a typical adult can only be partially differentiated, and the exact point in time when adolescents become adults can no longer be clearly identified. We find evidence that adolescence is becoming more ‘adult’ and adulthood is correspondingly becoming more ‘juvenile’. In almost all important social areas of life, the behavioral patterns of adults and of adolescents are coalescing. Living with insecurity in the working life and in social relations, experiencing limitations of personal autonomy, and the continuous need to work on social status inconsistencies today are characteristic features of the life of adolescents and adults. As many adolescents meet these demands skillfully and flexibly, they have in many respects become ‘social models’ for the adult life phase.
Youth protest, sometimes accompanied by riots, in a number of
European countries over the last few years repeatedly trigger the question whether similar forms of protest can be expected in the near future from young people in Germany as well. While any, often spontaneous eruption of (violent) protest, can never be predicted with certainty, we argue, based on an analysis of the last Shell Youth Studies (cf. Shell Deutschland 2002, 2006, 2010), that it is rather unlikely to happen in Germany, indeed that if anything this likelihood has decreased over recent years. We identify three explanations for the – compared to a range of other European countries – striking acquiescence of the current young generation in Germany: 1. A range of institutions that keep young Germans in the education system until they finally find employment, 2. a strong culture of pragmatic individualism, and 3. a strong distrust of political parties.