In 2015, all the member states of the United Nations committed to work towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. SDG 3 aims to “ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages” and central to this goal are the concepts of health and wellbeing. 

A new paper, Adolescent Well-Being: A Definition and Conceptual Framework published in the October issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, details how adolescent wellbeing is the key to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3, as today’s generation of adolescents is the largest in human history, with 25% of the population aged between 10-24 years. 

COVID-19 has had vast effects on the wellbeing of adolescents’, reinforcing the importance of have effective systems available to support the health and wellbeing of this age-group. But what is adolescent well-being? And how does health impact this concept of adolescent wellbeing? 

The WHO led initiative, developed a framework for defining, programming and measuring adolescent wellbeing. The commentary proposes a 5-domain framework, including both subjective and objective factors, emphasising the multidimensional nature of wellbeing.  

By implementing these measures, the WHO hopes to build momentum for a 2022 “Global Summit on Adolescents” to increase political and financial investments for this population group.  

“It will be essential that multiple sectors unite behind the common objective of improving wellbeing, using a common set of definitions, concepts, and indicators. Here, focusing on adolescents, we have proposed the first two of these requirements,” the paper explains. 

CAH is a WHO Collaborating Centre, and CAH co-director Prof George Patton is a contributor in this body of work.