Young people’s resilience and leadership were on show on International Youth Day as WHO/Europe dedicated all its social media accounts for the day to youth-led public health campaigns.
In Europe, young people are increasingly demanding to have their voices heard and join in determining their health and well-being futures. WHO/Europe and its partners are working with them, recognizing them as equal partners in developing policies and turning them into action for a better world.
The WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Promotion Research at the University of Galway in Ireland uses a variety of creative means to give a voice to future generations. These include involving young people in early discussions about health strategy development and adopting youth advisory panels. The Centre offers young people opportunities to take an active role in research, to share expectations, define goals and identify appropriate health-care frameworks to meet their personal needs.
Involving young people in health research
The Centre for Health Promotion Research at the University of Galway has directly involved Irish young people in its research since the early 2000s. For example, Professor Colette Kelly and her team invited adolescents to develop new questions for surveys that have since served as national indicators of child health and well-being for government departments in Ireland.
“Adolescents are key partners in our research, bringing incredible value to our work and this enhances the impact of our research on adolescent health and well-being and on society,” she said.
Irish adolescents prioritized topics for inclusion in the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) 2022 survey and national report. One 14-year-old female participant described the benefit of the project: "We bring ideas to projects that they [researchers] haven't thought about; it's good that we have an input."
Since 2009 the Health Promotion Research Centre (the Centre) has supported WHO work programmes in developing health promotion capacity through the translation of research into policy and practice. The Centre supports WHO/Europe in multiple ways:
- supporting a focused initiative on child and adolescent health;
- contributing to guides for decision makers to involve young people in processes; and
- advocating for and providing technical advice to support youth participation and youth-empowered efforts among WHO/Europe activities.
Youth engagement at WHO/Europe
“At WHO/Europe, youth engagement is a top priority of our special Youth4Health initiative,” said Hilaire Armstrong, Technical Officer of the Youth Initiative “We want to increase meaningful youth engagement across all our work, engaging young people in directing their own health futures and ensuring that they are a part of the decision-making processes. We are proud to partner with Collaborating Centres already contributing to this effort on multiple levels.”
The Youth4Health initiative was kickstarted in 2021 as a special initiative of the WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P Kluge. It aims to amplify and embed youth voices and perspectives into all areas of WHO Europe’s work.
Following up on the commitments of the first Youth4Health forum in Tirana, Albania, in 2022, WHO/Europe will launch its new youth network on 25 September 2023 at a side-event to the 73rd session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe. The network launch will be livestreamed on WHO/Europe’s Facebook and X channels on 25 September, at 10.00–11.30 Central European Summer Time.
Youth activists and youth organizations from across Europe and central Asia who are passionate about health and well-being are encouraged to apply to become members of the network.
This article was changed on 21 August 2023 to remove NUI from the name of the University of Galway.