Health of Infants, Children, and Adolescents: Life Course Perspectives on Global Health

Despite significant progress in child health since the establishment of the Millennium Development Goals, there remains a vast, unfinished agenda to optimize child and adolescent health outcomes across the life course. In addition to the longstanding impact of communicable illnesses, new health priorities have been identified. There is a need to address the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases and injuries. In addition, specific unmet health needs of adolescents have emerged, including sexual and reproductive health, mental health and evolving risk factors for non-communicable diseases. These health needs must be met in order to allow a growing population of adolescents to reach their potential at a critical moment of their development. Community and school-based prevention and management strategies remain paramount; however, for many health conditions, access to high-quality health care services is needed to allow children to survive, thrive and transform. This chapter summarizes current child and adolescent health priorities and the contemporary evidence basis for high-quality community- and facility-based care to reduce mortality and morbidity from high-burden diseases across childhood and adolescence.