Young people’s physical health: findings from GAGE multi-country longitudinal evidence

Health is foundational to any serious effort to build the healthier, more equitable world envisioned in the 2024 Pact for the Future.1 Yet adolescent health has historically attracted relatively little investment – partly because adolescents are generally healthier than under-5s, and because the antecedents of adult ill health are usually overlooked in the broad brush strokes that paint adolescence as a time of good health. It is only in the past decade that adolescence has been more widely recognised for what it is: a critical window for establishing good nutrition and healthy habits, reproductive health knowledge, and patterns of health care use that shape longer-term adult outcomes. For young people navigating poverty, child marriage, disability, or conflict and displacement, that window is narrower, the risks are greater, and the absence of adequate information and services is more likely to translate into lasting harm.

Suggested citation 

Presler-Marshall, E., Jones, N., Luckenbill, S., Seager, J., Leung, S., Abu Hamad, B., … and Youssef, S. (2026) Young people’s physical health: findings from GAGE multi-country longitudinal evidence. Report. London: Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (https://gage.odi.org/young-people-s-physical-health-findings-from-gage-multi-country-longitudinal-evidence/)