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<\/a>I found this surprising as whenever I talk about this to medical students, parents, policymakers, or the press, I am commonly met with surprise about when adolescence starts (\u201csurely 10 year olds aren\u2019t yet adolescents!\u201d) and when it ends (\u201cbut 21 yr olds are adults, not adolescents!\u201d). There seemed confusion around both childhood and adolescence. Some people prefer different terms (eg school aged children, youth, young people) and different age ranges have been applied to the same as well as different terms (see figure from the paper \u2018The Age of Adolescence\u2019).<\/p>\nSo, in the context of a new Global Strategy for Women\u2019s, Children\u2019s and Adolescents\u2019 Health, I felt there was value in in trying to articulate that how we conceptualise and define adolescence is important. Published in the Lancet Child and Adolescent Health<\/a> on January 17th<\/sup> 2018 (5), our key messages were:<\/p>\n That night, as I was on my way to Melbourne\u2019s Tullamarine airport to attend an academic meeting in London, I began to sense that one of my co-authors might be right. George Patton had predicted media interest – and there was. Four months later, the frequency of requests for copies of the paper has not abated. If anything it continues to grow. In October I will speak at the European regional meeting<\/a> <\/span>of the International Association of Adolescent Health on this topic, and also at the Australian Adolescent Health meeting<\/span><\/a>. The World Health Organization is considering holding a meeting to debate whether the age of adolescence should be expanded.<\/p>\n Why such interest? No doubt there is uncertainty about \u2018naming the age\u2019, but arguably much more has changed beyond the timing and duration of adolescence. The health profile of adolescents the world over is rapidly – and dramatically – shifting; new investments in policies and programs to respond to this burden are urgently required. Perhaps what has most changed is the extent of appreciation of the significance of adolescence within the lifecourse (4,6). This knowledge results in a very different set of reasons to invest in adolescence. Beyond the health and wellbeing of adolescents themselves, it is their future health, and that of the next generation, that are also at stake.<\/p>\n Professor Susan Sawyer The full paper can be accessed here: Sawyer, S. M., Azzopardi, P. S., Wickremarathne, D., & Patton, G. C. (2018). The age of adolescence.\u00a0The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health<\/i>,\u00a02<\/i>(3), 223-228. \n
<\/a>First up, the BBC wanted an interview – in the next hour! Thanks to some fancy footwork through immigration and the Qantas lounge, I was able to engage in a highly combative interview with an English sociologist (who I don\u2019t think had actually read the paper!). This combative story then ran on the BBC website the following day, by which time I was having my second BBC interview, this time in person at their London studios, which was much more relaxed (and where I enjoyed the WHO paraphernalia in the BBC lobby). Over the next few weeks never before have I done so many interviews in so many countries and with such a variety of programs (health, youth, education, media, lifestyle, etc). Everyone had an opinion, and while most were initially sceptical, they largely seemed to agree by the end of each interview.<\/p>\n
\nDirector, Centre for Adolescent Health<\/p>\n