Girls growing through adolescence have a higher risk of poor health.
BACKGROUND
Self rated health, in adult population, is strongly associated with mortality and life expectancy. In younger people this association is less evident, but it may anticipate a similar risk in adult life. Our research, based on the HBSC (Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children) International collaboration, contributes to deepen the knowledge in this field by monitoring adolescents' health through a multi-national survey involving 29 European countries, plus North America (Canada and USA) and Israel.


METHODS
Following an established methodology, the HBSC survey has elaborated a questionnaire on health and health behaviour, filled in by a representative national sample of 11-, 13- and 15-year-old boys and girls. The sample is constituted of more than 160,000 subjects interviewed during the 2001/2002 survey. Reported symptoms and self-rated health have been analysed by sex and age and through the different countries.


RESULTS
Girls resulted to have a poorer perception of their health, with respect to males, at all ages and in all countries (Overall OR = 1.70, 95% CI: 1.66-1.76). Age increases this risk both for males and females, with an average increase of 32% (95% CI: 29-34%) per year in the age-range 11-15. The situation is similar for reported symptoms, with an overall OR of 1.81 (95% CI: 1.77-1.85) for females of reporting three or more symptoms at least once a week; also this risk increases of 26% (95% CI: 24-27%) per year during the pre-adolescence phase. In both cases it could be shown a significant interaction effect between age and gender: OR = 1.19 (CI: 1.15-1.23) for perceived health and OR = 1.26 (CI: 1.23-1.29) for reported symptoms in females with respect to males.


CONCLUSIONS
Even if adolescence is described as the healthiest period of life, a consistent minority of young people perceive and report a poor health and a high number of symptoms. Females are constantly in a worse position than males and older age groups are worse than younger ones.
Cavallo
Franco
F
Dipartimento di Sanità Pubblica, University of Torino, Turin, Italy. franco.cavallo@unito.it
Zambon
Alessio
A
Borraccino
Alberto
A
Raven-Sieberer
Ulrike
U
Torsheim
Torbjørn
T
Lemma
Patrizia
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D041923:Adolescent Development; D005260:Female; D006262:Health; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011788:Quality of Life; D012306:Risk; D012737:Sex Factors