Adolescent Health and Well-Being: Issues, Challenges, and Current Status in India

Abstract

Adolescence is the developmental stage between childhood and adulthood marked by considerable growth in physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional domains. It is considered as a preparatory phase for adulthood, and therefore, well-being during adolescence would predict well-being during adulthood and age ahead. During this stage of life, children have specific needs that vary based upon gender, socio-economic status, and overall cultural belief system of the community. In order to understand the process of development during adolescence, it is extremely important to study the systems like family, school neighborhood, and community in which the adolescents live. Few researches in India have studied these processes to understand the adolescent’s need at large. With about 373 million persons between the ages of 10 and 24 years, India has the largest number of young people of any country in the world and that makes it a more viable area for research, intervention, and policy implementation. To meet the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ health, the Government of India have prioritized adolescent health in various programs and policies. However, in spite of all the attempts by researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, there is still a major gap which needs to be filled up to reach the 2030 SDG goals. Therefore, the need of the hour is to follow a multidisciplinary approach toward research, policy formulation, and intervention for psychosocial and physical health of adolescents. This chapter is an attempt to discuss the major issues of adolescent development in the socio-cultural context of India, identify the research gaps, and analyze the policies and programs for positive developmental outcomes for the young people in India.