Global Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!): Guidance to Support Country Implementation

Adolescents are not simply old children or young adults. This deceptively simple observation lies at the heart of Global Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents (AA-HA!): Guidance to support country implementation, which reflects the coming of age of adolescent health within global public health.

For years, the unique health issues associated with adolescence have been little understood or, in some cases, ignored. But that has now changed. Adolescent health and development was made an integral part of the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (2016–2030) (The Global Strategy) because, in the words of the United Nations Secretary-General, “[adolescents are] central to everything we want to achieve, and to the overall success of the 2030 Agenda”.

This Guidance is a milestone for translating the Global Strategy into action. It provides a wealth of information to policy-makers, practitioners, researchers, educators, donors, and civil society organizations – including the most up to-date data on the major disease and injury burdens that affect adolescents. It supports the implementation of the Global Strategy by providing the comprehensive information that countries need to decide what to do for adolescent health, and how to do it. It builds on on-going efforts to ensure that adolescents can Survive, Thrive and are in a position to Transform the societies in which they live.