The World Health Organization highlighted the “triple dividend” benefit—immediate, future, and intergenerational—of ensuring health systems in Southeast Asian nations are sensitive to the special requirements of teenagers.

Between the ages of 10 and 19, adolescence is a period of unique development that includes cognitive, social, physical, emotional, and sexual growth. “In her address to the ongoing three-day ‘Regional Meeting to Achieve Universal Health Coverage for Adolescent Population through Adolescent Responsive Health Systems,’ Saima Wazed, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia, stated that adolescents require special attention in national health and development policies due to their unique needs.”

The regional director went on to say that funding for teenage health has a triple bottom line: it produces immediate benefits by encouraging healthy behaviors as well as through early identification, prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. Future benefits from encouraging healthy lifestyles that lower risk factors for illnesses and contribute to a decrease in hazardous behaviors and morbidity later in adulthood, as well as intergenerational benefits from encouraging healthy habits throughout youth.

Investing in the health and well-being of adolescents is highly cost-effective and benefits from benefit cost ratios that are anticipated to be 5–10 times higher than the dollar spent in adolescent health due to the expected health, social, and economic advantages.

In the WHO South-East Asia Region, over 670 teenagers pass away every day. Numerous factors contribute to the high burden of morbidity, including self-harm, mental health issues, diet, noncommunicable illnesses, and teenage pregnancy.

Even though the majority of teenage health problems are avoidable or controllable, there is strong evidence that teenagers encounter many obstacles when trying to get health care and information, and that these difficulties were made worse by the COVID-19 epidemic.

“In the last ten years, there have been notable advancements in our region’s politics, technology, and programming to prioritize the health and well-being of adolescents.” Positive policies, national initiatives, and tactics pertaining to adolescent health, particularly school health, have resulted from this. Funding, a lack of accountability, a dispersed implementation with inadequate coverage and quality, and the inability to get high-quality disaggregated data remain major obstacles, according to Saima Wazed.

“Compared to other age groups, our health systems do not yet possess the same degree of “adolescent-centricity.” They’re mostly made for managing diseases or for other targeted age groups, like moms, kids, or adults, together with the platforms that supply health services,” she said.

Rather than institutionalizing adolescent-friendly components into health systems, efforts to institutionalize adolescent-friendly services have mostly concentrated on specific institutions. According to her, instead of offering complete packages of treatments that address mental health, non-communicable illnesses, violence prevention, and other issues, they have given priority to sexual and reproductive health and curative care.

“It is crucial to design and develop health systems that are responsive to adolescents. When creating and executing these health services, it is also necessary to take the opinions of teenagers and their families into consideration. We must make sure they have access to health care that is courteous, inclusive, and of the highest quality. These services need to be freely accessible to adolescents anywhere they want and without any kind of financial or other limitations. Additionally, this will advance universal health coverage by strengthening primary healthcare, according to Wazed.

One of the five tactical measures for a healthier, more equitable, and sustainable WHO South-East Asia Region is investing in the health of women, girls, adolescents, and vulnerable groups, which the Regional Director reaffirmed.