Health risks rise from teens to young adulthood

During the transition from adolescence to adulthood, health risk increases and access to health care decreases across all race/ethnic groups, according to a study funded by the National institutes of Health.

The ethnically diverse National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health followed some 14,000 adolescents over time into young adulthood. Participants were first interviewed when they were 12 to 19 years of age, and then when they were 19 to 26 years old.

“We wanted to figure out what happens to the health of adolescents when they move out of the home and enter young adulthood, and how it is different by race and ethnicity” Dr. Kathleen Mullan Harris, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill told Reuters Health.

“Our study is the first one of its kind because we followed the same people over time, looking at changes in their behavior,” Harris added.

She and her colleagues looked at 20 health indicators, and found that in 15 out of the 20 declined as the subjects became young adults. “Diet got worse, people got less exercise, had less access to health care, there was a lower health insurance rate,” Harris explained. The team also found increases in substance use. “Young adults drink more, smoke more cigarettes, use drugs.”

The study, in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, also found important disparities among races and ethnicities. “This is not a story where minorities are always worse off,” Harris said. “It really depends on what behavior you are looking at.”

For example, whites were more likely to use cigarettes and binge drink, and their increase in substance use was the greatest from adolescence to young adulthood. Blacks were a little worse off in terms of physical exercise and obesity, while Native Americans had worse problems with asthma.

Among female adults, Asians and blacks were the least likely to exercise, while among male adults, whites and blacks were the least likely to exercise.

“A lot of these trends are to be expected,” Harris said. “This is the age when young people experiment with different lifestyles and behaviors, and when they move out of the house they have even more freedom to do that. We expect that when they settle into more permanent jobs and unions, these trends will abate.”

But some of the findings “are really alarming,” she concluded. “For example, the drop-off in exercise is really dramatic. Obesity is one trend that may continue. The transition to adulthood is a very vulnerable period, and has huge health consequences.”

SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, January 2006.

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