A. Marks Morgan

Through this international report on the results of its most recent survey, the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study supplies the up-to-date information needed by policy-makers at various levels of government, nongovernmental organizations, and professionals in sectors such as health, education, social services, justice and recreation. The latest addition to a series of HBSC reports on young people’s health, this report presents findings from the 2009/2010 survey on the demographic and social influences on the health of young people (aged 11, 13 and 15 years) in 43 countries and regions in the WHO European Region and North America. Responding to the survey, the young people described their social context (relations with family, peers and school), physical health and satisfaction with life, health behaviours (patterns of eating, tooth brushing and physical activity) and risk behaviours (use of tobacco, alcohol and cannabis, sexual behaviour, fighting and bullying). Statistical analyses were carried out to identify meaningful differences in the prevalence of health and social indicators by gender, age group and levels of family affluence. The aim was to provide a rigorous, systematic statistical base for describing cross-national patterns, in terms of the magnitude and direction of differences between subgroups, thus contributing to a better understanding of the social determinants of health and well-being among young people, and providing the means to help protect and promote their health.

Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder that requires constant management to maintain good health and quality of life. Poorly managed diabetes could lead to serious complications and early death. With the ageing demographic profile, there is growing recognition that older people, including those with diabetes, are increasingly becoming a significant proportion of the labour force leading to changes in pension and retirement-related policies. For people with diabetes, understanding how working conditions influence their health and wellbeing is an important step to addressing issues that could compromise their prolonged participation in the labour force. This study examined impact of job-strain on health-related quality of life among people with diabetes. A hundred and twenty-three eligible individuals with diabetes who attended two acute trusts, participated in the study. Diabetes specific quality of life, job characteristics and personal/disease characteristics were measured using questionnaires. Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses were undertaken using SPSS version-22. Over a sixth (17.4%) of participants reported poor quality of life. Marital/co-habitation status, type of diabetes and presence of other long-term conditions were associated with quality of life. High deprivation levels was associated with poor quality of life but there was no association between deprivation levels and participants’ perception of the impact of diabetes on their quality of life. High psychological job-demands and physical job-demands were each associated with poor quality of life. High physical and psychological job-demands are potentially detrimental to quality of life in people with diabetes. Adjustments in working conditions could prove crucial in improving quality of life of employees with diabetes.

Investing in the health and wellbeing of children and young people is essential for the success and sustainability of future generations. We already have much knowledge about the many factors that can impact on their ability to deal with the different pressures that they face from very early years to mid-adolescence. These factors relate to their own genetic susceptibilities to achieving health, to their family, to their environment (particularly school) and life events. Early to mid adolescence marks a particularly difficult period when young people have to deal with considerable change in their lives such as growing academic expectations; changing social relationships with family and peers and physical and emotional changes associated with maturation. The question is therefore how do we provide them with the optimum conditions to be able to understand, make sense and deal with these situations as they arise. The idea of ‘health assets’ and asset based approaches to health and wellbeing has emerged recently as one way of focussing the minds of researchers, policy makers and practitioners on the best ways of doing this. Essentially, a health asset can be defined as any factor which enhances the ability of individuals, communities and populations to maintain and sustain health and wellbeing. The argument then being that the more opportunities young people have in childhood and adolescence to experience and accumulate the positive effects of these assets that outweigh negative risk factors, the more likely they are to achieve and sustain health and mental well-being in later life. The principles of asset based approaches include: