11.9.07

Text Sam - Sexual Health Advice SMS

Teens tap into sexual advice via text | Society | SocietyGuardian.co.uk

Teens tap into sexual advice via text

Tom Willetts
Wednesday August 1, 2007
SocietyGuardian.co.uk

Text Sam received more than 42,000 requests for information during a pilot scheme.

This article was corrected on Friday August 10 2007

The article below had mistakenly stated that almost 90% of young people
in the London boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth have had a sexually
transmitted disease, when that figure actually applied to the
percentage of young people surveyed in the boroughs who would welcome
the Text Sam service.

A charity is rolling
out a pioneering service that gives young people sexual health advice
by text message after a successful pilot in the two boroughs with the
highest rate of sexually transmitted disease in Europe.

Safe
Haven is launching Text Sam across Britain to provide information for
young men and women about contraception, sexually transmitted diseases,
pregnancy and sexuality.

7.8.07

You, Your Friends, Your Friends of Friends

By GINA KOLATA

Published: August 5, 2007

IN a way it all seems so obvious. Your friend found a lump in her breast, so you have that long-delayed mammogram. One by one your friends stop smoking, so you stop, too. Of course people are affected by their friends’ habits and their health.

But what seems obvious in the abstract can lead to surprising findings. A recent study found that obesity can spread from friend to friend much like a virus. When one person gains weight, close friends tend to gain weight, too.

The study, published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine,
involved a detailed analysis of a large social network of 12,067 people
who had been closely followed for 32 years, from 1971 to 2003.

Now, scientists believe that social networks not only can spread diseases, like the common cold,
but also may influence many types of behavior — negative and positive —
which then affect an individual’s health, as well as a community’s.

“In the past few years we have been seeing a network revolution,” says Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, a physics professor at the University of Notre Dame.
“People sensed that networks were out there, but they never had large
enough data sets to start understanding them in a quantitative fashion.”

For
example, he said, sociologists would go into a classroom and ask
students to list their friends. That, he said, can be useful, but
social networks are huge, and they evolve over time. They involve you,
your family, your friends, your friends’ friends and your friends’
friends’ friends.

Obesity - Smoking - Depression - Friends - Eating Disorders - Medicine and Health - New York Times

31.7.07

Lancets Adolescent Health series of papers

Press Office The Lancet launches Adolescent Health Series

The Lancet launches Adolescent Health Series

Today’s generation of adolescents is the largest in history—nearly half of the world’s population is less than 25 years old and they face far more complex challenges to their health and development than their parents did. Many young people today are living with HIV/AIDS or depression, the leading causes of disease burden for adolescents worldwide. And hazardous alcohol use now accounts for 86% of the 8·6 million substance related deaths of 15–29 year olds globally.

In the series, The Lancet aims to highlight an area of health that remains neglected, marginalised, and ignored in many countries. Adolescence is a time in life that harbours many risks and dangers, but also one that presents great opportunities for sustained health through education and preventive efforts. Currently many countries fail to put sufficient emphasis on the special needs of adolescents, they are either treated the same as children or have to share facilities with older adults. The series calls for a concerted effort to create youth-friendly services worldwide, while putting young people at the heart of the policy-making to ensure their access to youth-friendly health services.

Sexual ignorance can lead to pregnancy

According to the April 2005 issue of Journal of Adolescent Health,
teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to
take chances with other kinds of sex that increase the risk of STDs.

Research feedback of a nurse led sexual health YPC

`No worries!': Young people's experiences of nurse-led drop-in sexual health services in South West England -- Ingram and Salmon 12 (4): 305 -- Journal of Research in Nursing

Journal of Research in Nursing, Vol. 12, No. 4, 305-315 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1744987107075583
© 2007 SAGE Publications
`No worries!'
Young people's experiences of nurse-led drop-in sexual health services in South West England
Jenny Ingram

Centre for Child & Adolescent Health, University of Bristol, jenny.ingram@bristol.ac.uk

Debra Salmon

Community Health Faculty of Health & Social Care, University of the West of England

`No Worries!' is a nurse-led drop-in sexual health service for young people in one Primary Care Trust in South West England. The service aims to provide sexual health promotion, contraception, STI testing and a range of health promotion advice. The service was evaluated from the young people's perspectives using quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Attendance data, questionnaires and interviews explored patterns of use, effectiveness and acceptability of three clinics, two in areas of social deprivation and a third with increasing teenage conception rates.

Questionnaire data were collected from 153 young people (232 clinic attendances) and 18 were interviewed (aged 14—18 years). The pattern of service use varied across the clinics, with those from the lowest socio-economic community using fewer condoms, having more pregnancy tests and STI swabs. Average age of first intercourse was 15 years, and most visited the clinic after having sex rather than before. Young people found the service accessible and they highlighted close proximity to home and school, the drop-in nature, and confidentiality, professionalism and friendliness of staff. After using the service, respondents reported that they would be more likely to practise safer sex and change their behaviour.

Child Anorexia on rise in Australia

Child anorexia cases overwhelm hospital - National - theage.com.au

Jill Stark
July 28
Royal Children's Hospital Eating Disorder inpatient admissions by age range.

Royal Children's Hospital Eating Disorder inpatient admissions by age range.

AdvertisementAdvertisement

AN ALARMING rise in the number of children being hospitalised with anorexia has forced Victoria's largest eating disorder service to close its doors to new patients.

The Royal Children's Hospital is struggling to cope with a sharp increase in girls with the illness.

Admissions among 10 to 13-year-olds increased from three in 2003 to 43 last year.

Canadian teens safer than in 1979

TheStar.com - living - Canadian teens safer than in 1979

GOOD NEWS FOR PARENTS

Study finds deaths, injuries from car crashes, firearms, other mishaps have fallen dramatically

Jul 27, 2007 04:30 AM
Sheila Dabu
Living Reporter
Canadian teens are safer now than in the 1980s, according to a new national study in the Journal of Adolescent Health this month.

Most parents would say this contradicts the headlines and sound bites this summer about Toronto's tragic mix of teens and gun violence and high-speed crashes.

According to researchers at the Public Health Agency of Canada, teens may be safer today because of prevention programs that aim for safer driving and gun control.

But that doesn't mean parents can relax.

24.7.07

That's the problem

That's the problem: President Bush suggests uninsured children go to hospital emergency rooms for their care | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
After the Senate Finance Committee approved an expansion of the federal Children's Health Insurance Program to cover nearly 10 million kids, President Bush offered a strange rationale for threatening to veto it.

"People have access to health care in America," he told an audience in Cleveland. "After all, you just go to an emergency room."

As any executive of a Houston hospital can attest, that is precisely the problem created by the high number of uninsured people in the United States. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured children in the nation, and Harris County the highest in the state. Those who lack insurance coverage frequently delay seeking medical care until they are seriously ill. Then they swamp hospital emergency rooms that are required by law to treat them even if the patient has no ability to pay.

Since emergency care is far more expensive than a scheduled visit to a doctor or clinic, hospitals wind up with large costs that they then pass on to insured patients using their overtaxed facilities. As a result, insurance companies raise their rates ever higher to cover the increased payouts, making their policies too expensive for more working families. The result is a health care system spiraling out of control and more children left unprotected and in poor health.

17.7.07

Youth work inspection framework

Ofsted
is planning modifications to the enhanced youth inspection framework,
in response to feedback from local authorities and their partners, and
following discussion with key stakeholders in the sector

Full information at OFSTED website

The modifications take into account the developments outlined in the Youth Matters Green Paper and Youth Matters: Next Steps; Statutory guidance on positive activities; and the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which created a new requirement on local authorities to provide access to positive activities for young people.

The modified enhanced youth inspection framework will reflect how
recent legislative and structural issues are shaping the delivery of
youth work, and the progress made towards towards the introduction of
integrated youth support service arrangements in 2008.

Ofsted has developed its proposals in conjunction with its partner
inspectorates and commissions involved in the delivery of children’s
services inspections, as well as with the Department for Children,
Schools and Families (formely the DfES), the National Youth Agency, the
Association of Principal Youth and Community Officers and local
authority representatives.

Many aspects of the enhanced youth inspection framework will remain
the same. Specifically, the evaluation requirements that apply to the
inspection of youth work will remain focused on three general reporting
areas: the standards of young people’s achievement and the quality of
youth work; the quality of curriculum and resources; and leadership and
management.

Among suggested modifications to the enhanced youth inspection
framework are a greater focus on the five Every Child Matters outcomes
and reporting on how well local authorities consult with and involve
young people in decision making.

The inspections will still take place as an integral part of the joint area review process.

It is expected that the modified enhanced youth inspection framework will be launched in September 2007.

CareandHealth

17.1.07

Kings EAR nearly one year on.

Watch this space.

www.kingsear.org.uk

16.1.07

Morning-after pill to be offered to 11-year-olds

January 12 2007
Andrew Wander - icSouthLondon

KIDS as young as 11 are being offered the morning-after pill from school in a bid to cut teenage pregnancy.

Lambeth council is piloting a project at two secondaries.

Free pregnancy tests are also available.

Drop-in clinics have been set up at Stockwell Park School and the Park Centre in West Norwood as part of the scheme already set up in 13 schools across the country in November.

The clinics, run by specialist family planning nurses,offer students emergency contraception and pregnancy testing as well as advice and information about sexual matters.

It is hoped the scheme will help reduce the borough's rate of teenage pregnancy,which is one of the highest in the country.

The latest figures show one in 10 girls become pregnant before the age of 18.

Health chiefs also want to reduce the number of teenagers who contract sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as chlamydia and gonorrhoea.

Lambeth's public health director, Ruth Wallis, said: "We have put the reduction in the teenage pregnancy rate and the improvement in the sexual health of young people among our top priorities."

And the council has supported the move.

Sam Townend, deputy cabinet member for young people, said: "Teenage pregnancy rates in the borough have been very high.

"We hope that this will prove an effective way to tackle the problem."

If the initiative is successful, council chiefs say that other schools in the borough could start offering similar services.

The latest figures show the level of STIs has shot up by 12 per cent in the UK. London has one of the highest levels of infection. The major STIs include HIV/Aids, gonorrhoea, syphilis, chlamydia, genital herpes and genital warts.

The Youth Health Initiative