Adolescent Health - Policy, Science, and Human Rights

In Adolescent Health a contemporary setting is used to illustrate the intersection of evidence and ethics in policy making. Individual chapters describe the social determinants of youth health (chronic conditions, ethnicity, family income, school and peer relationships) and youth health behaviours and outcomes (substance use, violence, sexual and physical activity). Within this broad landscape of youth health issues, the authors apply the human rights principles of the Convention to their research to illustrate the often competing frameworks of evidence and ethics. The underlying question is whether social policy, in the real world, depends on science or human rights. Current knowledge translation practices are examined to detect the pathway most likely to influence youth health policy.