title: Adolescent health psychology.
abstract: In this article, a biopsychosocial model of adolescent development is used as an organizing framework for a review of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention research with adolescent populations. During adolescence many critical health behaviors emerge, affecting future disease outcomes in adulthood. In addition, most of the predominant causes of morbidity and mortality in adolescence are unique to this period of development, indicating that health-focused interventions must be tailored specifically to adolescents. Moreover, it is during adolescence that lifelong patterns of self-management of and adjustment to chronic health conditions are established. Thus, an increased focus on adolescence in health psychology research is important both to improve the health of adolescents per se and to optimize health trajectories into adulthood.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Washington State University, Pullman 99164-4820, USA. pwillms@wsu.edu
authors.forename: Paula G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Grayson N
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: Holmbeck
authors.forename: Rachel Neff
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Greenley
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D015438:Health Behavior; D006293:Health Promotion; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans