Philadelphia's adolescent self-consent regulation, adopted in 2007, permits youth aged 11-18 who are capable of informed consent to authorize immunizations that prevent reportable diseases. Despite its potential to reduce barriers and advance equity, the regulation's visibility and use remain poorly understood. This study explores healthcare provider perspectives on the awareness of the regulation, utility, and implementation challenges.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disproportionately impacts young people aged 13-24 years, particularly youth experiencing homelessness (YEH). Effective HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) exists, but barriers to uptake are high. The purpose of this study is to identify at-risk patients seen in a homeless shelter-associated clinic and develop a process to prescribe PrEP in-house for easier access.

Menstruation is a natural biological function and plays an important role in a healthy reproductive life. However, it is often wrongly viewed as solely a women's concern, even though reproductive health is not gender-specific. This misconception persists largely because the topic is avoided during a crucial stage of education, leaving adolescents uninformed and lacking accurate knowledge. In view of this, the present study aims to explore the perceptions of adolescent boys regarding menstruation in order to understand their point of view and current level of knowledge on the subject.

Youth mental health and substance use issues are rising worldwide, along with barriers to timely, culturally, and developmentally appropriate care. Integrated Youth Services (IYS) offer early intervention through in-person, virtual, and hybrid options. The objectives of this study were to: (1) compare the demographic and clinical characteristics of youth accessing three types of service modalities (virtual, in-person, and hybrid), and (2) understand the service utilization patterns (number and frequency of visits, repeated visits rate, new registrations) among an IYS youth cohort.

To study adolescent gamers' representations of well-being using a Minecraft construction challenge as an innovative research tool.

Sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) are harmful practices linked to adverse mental health outcomes among sexual minority (SM) individuals. We investigated the associations between (1) sociodemographic factors and exposure to SOCE; (2) SOCE experiences and the risk for depression, anxiety, and suicidality; (3) SOCE characteristics-recency, frequency, and the person responsible-and mental health outcomes.

This study aimed to assess the risk and protective factors associated with susceptibility to e-cigarette and cigarette use among U.S. adolescents.

Despite proven efficacy in preventing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) remains underutilized among adolescents and young adults (AYA) in the United States (US). This systematic review and narrative synthesis examined approaches for delivering PrEP to AYA aged 12-24 years. A comprehensive search of four major databases identified 10 studies meeting the predefined inclusion criteria. Across studies, successful implementation approaches were often multimodal, integrating technology, provider support, and personalized navigation. Technology-enhanced delivery strategies, particularly those using interactive messaging, were associated with improved PrEP adherence and clinic engagement, while provider-focused interventions that integrated clinical decision support systems within workflows facilitated PrEP prescribing. Personalized navigation services were consistently identified as valuable for improving engagement among marginalized AYA. The literature also revealed ongoing implementation gaps, indicating a need for coordinated, multi-level strategies to address the barriers AYA face.

Examining racial disparities in meningococcal vaccination (MenACWY) uptake and disease burden is essential for understanding the potential implications of a revised MenACWY schedule and guiding targeted efforts to reduce health inequities. We assessed associations of socioeconomic factors with MenACWY coverage (≥1 dose), drop-out from the second (booster) dose, and disparities in vaccination coverage and invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) burden among adolescents aged 13-17 years living in noninstitutionalized households in the United States.

The study aims to evaluate the ability of ChatGPT-4 to generate reliable and accurate responses concerning exercise and rehabilitation strategies for adolescent patients with myositis.

Social media influencers have become a key source of health information for young people, despite often lacking medical expertise and being driven by commercial interests. This study examines influencers' role in shaping youth health behaviors, focusing on (1) their exposure to and trust in health-related content from influencers; (2) their engagement with influencer marketing of health products; and (3) how demographic characteristics, social media use patterns, digital health literacy, and parasocial relationships influence exposure, trust, and engagement.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV is a safe and highly effective prevention method, yet use among U.S. adolescents at risk for HIV has been low. Little is known about how sexual health communication (SHC) and the quality of parent-adolescent relationships influence parents' hypothetical willingness to support their adolescent using PrEP.

Violence against women and girls is a human rights and public health concern that can affect women at every stage of life, with adolescence presenting a heightened period of risk for girls. Evidence is urgently needed to understand what works to prevent violence against adolescent girls and young women, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This systematic review synthesized evidence from evaluations of interventions to prevent violence against adolescent girls and young women in LMICs, published between January 2015 and November 2023. Searches were conducted in February 2023 in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Researchers included any evaluation of a program measuring either reductions in violence against adolescent girls and young women or changes in behaviors, attitudes, and norms related to violence. Twenty-eight articles met the inclusion criteria, representing evidence from 24 different interventions. Approximately half of these interventions took an education and life skills approach, and a quarter used an income or economic strengthening approach. The vast majority of evidence in LMICs comes from the Sub-Saharan African and South Asian regions, with little or none from Middle-East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, or West and Central Asia. Effective interventions tend to have multiple components and include meaningful engagement of young people through participatory learning techniques, which allow for critical thinking to build positive gender attitudes and nonviolent behavior. Programs that center on change of norms and values, including community-based programs and interventions working with adolescent boys and young men, are promising and require further research.

Although the long-term continuity of victimization is well-documented, the mechanisms that link adolescent peer victimization to later relational harassment in other life domains (e.g., romantic relationships, workplace), and the contextual moderators that reduce the negative effects of victimization, remain unclear. The present study examined the associations between trajectories of perceived peer victimization, characterological self-blame (CSB), and internalizing problems across high school and whether these processes predict romantic relationship and workplace harassment in early adulthood. The mediating effect of CSB and the moderating effect of numerical racial/ethnic majority/minority status in high school were tested.