 |
|
     |
|
 |
ONE-THIRD OF TEENS REPORT RISKY HEALTH BEHAVIORS, SAYS NEW SURVEY
Wishing you were as healthy and energetic as a teenager? Don't be so sure, a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Foundation for Accountability cautions. Thirty-four percent of teens engage in risky health behaviors like smoking or drinking, and 23 percent of teens report strong feelings of sadness or hopelessness.
Add these totals to the number of teens with chronic physical, mental or behavioral conditions, and more than half of American teens "experience significant risks to their emotional or physical well being," the report concludes.
Conducted as part of RWJF's National Strategic Indicators Project, "A Portrait of Adolescents in America, 2001" presents the results of an online survey of the health and health care experiences of 2000 adolescents age 13 to 17. The findings suggest that teens who engage in risky behaviors are left behind by traditional health care, where they receive almost none of the private advice and preventive screening that could improve their health.
The full report is online at the Foundation for Accountability's Web site, www.facct.org.
|
|
|||||
 |
|||||||
