Population Health and Health Equity for Adolescents

Population health focuses on health outcomes among a group of individuals, with the goals of maintaining the health of an entire population and reducing inequalities in health between groups (Kindig and Stoddart, Am J Public Health 93:380–383, 2003; Health Canada (1998) Taking action on population health. Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario). Given the changing racial/ethnic composition of the population of adolescents in the USA, healthcare providers will need to provide quality care that appropriately addresses the needs of the increasingly diverse population of young people. A population health perspective that considers social determinants of health across adolescents’ social ecologies represents a potentially effective approach to improving health outcomes and reducing health disparities among minority youth. Social determinants of health represent conditions in the environments in which people live, learn, work, and play that affect health outcomes and risks (Marmot et al., Lancet 372:1661–1669, 2008). Negative social determinants lead to health disparities. Thus, addressing social determinants of health associated with health disparities among youth will help achieve the goal of promoting health equity among the adolescent population. An ecological or life-course perspective remains essential to understanding adolescents’ current health and potential health trajectories (Blum et al., Lancet 379:1567–1568, 2012). Clinicians are encouraged to address modifiable, proximal determinants of risk and protective factors related to health outcomes across adolescents’ social ecologies in efforts to reduce health disparities and enhance health equity among their adolescent patient populations.