Securing our global future: investing in adolescent health

Over the past decade, there has been growing recognition of adolescence as a unique developmental stage, across which focused interventions can reap a triple dividend of benefits: during adolescence itself, as adolescents mature into adulthood, and for the next generation parented by those adolescents. Yet, despite evidence of a ten-fold return on investment, adolescents remain largely invisible within the public health agenda and have not attracted the policy attention and financing needed for transformative change. Beyond prominent increases in obesity and mental ill health, immense challenges-climate disasters, conflict, pandemics, commercial interests, digital technologies, and political shifts-are reshaping young people's lives in ways that are more pervasive, complex, and severe than in the past. These threats risk reversing many of the gains in adolescent health over the past 20 years. Gender-sensitive and age-sensitive multisector interventions are needed to co-create opportunities that realise the potential of today's young people, which will help ensure the health and prosperity of future populations and the planet.