Adolescent health symposium

The 11th UCL Institute for Global Health (IGH) Symposium, 'Coming of age for adolescent health', was held on 9 September 2009. Young people have traditionally been seen as healthy and low users of health services. In the modern era, the pressures of economic development and social change have particularly had an impact on young people, increasing mortality and ill health at a time when younger child mortality has decreased rapidly. Professor George Patton, Director of Adolescent Health Research at the University of Melbourne, opened the symposium with a presentation on 'Global Patterns of Adolescent Mortality'. He said that 30% of the world's population was aged 10?24 and 2.6 million of them die each year. He described the variations in death rates and causes of death by such factors as region, age, income, education and sex. Accidents and injuries were still the highest cause of death in this age group, yet World Health Organization spending was disproportionately focused on infectious diseases.