GOOD GOODMORNING

CHALLENGES OF
ADOLESCENTS
TODAYS YOUTH FACE A NUMBER OF PRESSING PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEMS

• SUICIDE
• HOMICIDE
• UNPLANNED PREGNANCY
• SEXUALITY TRANSMITTED DISEASES
• SUBSTANCE ABUSE
 PERHAPS EVEN MORE DISTURBING IN THE FACT THAT THE
BLEADING CAUSES OR MORBIDITY AND AMONG OUR YOUNG
PEOPLE ARE USUALLY PREVENTABLE

• MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS – Motor vehicle accidents kill more

teenagers than all other causes combined with 15,000 deaths reported
annually from automobile related injuries alone. Alcohol and other drugs
are known to be factors in many of these fatalities.
• SUICIDE- Another sobering statistic is that the rate of adolescent suicide
has tripled over the past three decades to 5,000 per year. It is estimated
that there are 50-200 attempts for every death by suicide.
 Many adolescents also succumb to pressures on how to look. feel and act in a
society obsessed with people’s appearances and with the desire for immediate
gratification.

• TEEN PREGNANCY- Each year in this country one million (one in ten) teenage
girls become pregnant. The vast majority of these pregnancies are unplanned.
• SEXUALITY TRANSMITTED DISEASES- There are also more than three
million cases of sexually transmitted diseases. Including HIV, reported among
adolescents every year in this country
• ALCOHOL- Over 90 percent of high school seniors have reported some
experience with the alcohol. The use of tobacco and marijuana among our youth
also continues
that they smoked cigarettes and over 20 percent got high on pot in
the last month. Of futher concern is that alcohol, tobacco and
marijuana are gateway drugs to even more dangerous illicit
substances
• EATING DISORDERS- Eating disorders have also
become very common as the preoccupation with
thinness supersedes a desire a desire to be healthy and
teenagers often resort to desperate or even dangerous
methods of weight control