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Review
. 2017 Aug 10;14(1):94.
doi: 10.1186/s12978-017-0353-y.

How Canada can help global adolescent health mature

Ashley Vandermorris  1 , Zulfiqar A Bhutta  2
Affiliations
Review

How Canada can help global adolescent health mature

Ashley Vandermorris et al. Reprod Health. .

Abstract

Background: There is an emerging focus on adolescent health within the global health community as we come to recognize that the adolescent years are formative in determining health and health-related behaviours across the life-course. Such attention is not only relevant on the global scale but is imperative in Canada as well.

Main body: This commentary provides a brief review of recent investments targeting global adolescent health and presents five potential avenues for action which emerged out of the recent Canadian Partnership for Women and Children's Health (CanWaCH) Global Adolescent Health conference. These avenues are: (1) Demand data; (2) Embrace complexity; (3) Be holistic; (4) Engage adolescents; and (5) Commit to Canada.

Conclusion: As international agencies signal their commitment to global adolescent health, Canada is well-positioned to lead this call to action by espousing the fundamental adolescent health tenets of advocacy, equity, justice, and collaboration in order to move this critical agenda forward.

Keywords: Adolescent health; Global health; Health policy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Authors’ information

Dr. Ashley Vandermorris is a Research Fellow at the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health and a Staff Physician in the Division of Adolescent Medicine at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). Dr. Zulfiqar A Bhutta is the inaugural Robert Harding Chair in Global Child Health and Co-Director of the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health, Senior Scientist at the SickKids Research Institute, Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Department of Nutritional Sciences, and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at The University of Toronto, and Founding Director of the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health at The Aga Khan University.

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Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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