New Delhi: Self-harm and road injuries have emerged as the top killers among the 15-24 age group in India. While self-harm has moved up from rank three to rank one in India, earlier in 1990, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death among the young. Worldwide, road traffic accidents, self-harm and violence were found to be the leading causes of death for 15-24 years.
According to a major new international analysis of findings from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project, led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), to be published in the Lancet, adolescents aged 10–24 years have the poorest healthcare coverage of any age group. “Because adolescence is generally thought to be the healthiest time of life, young people have attracted little interest and too few resources,” said the Lancet.
India has not done enough too. Speaking to this newspaper, Vikram Patel, professor of International Mental Health and Wellcome Trust principal research fellow in Clinical Science Centre for Global Mental Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, told this newspaper, “We are certainly not doing enough, for the death toll in youth has been rising for the past decade, even while many other countries, like China and Sri Lanka, have been able to achieve just the opposite. As an immediate priority, the government must launch a national programme, with the active participation of youth, to address these leading causes of death and illness.”
Adolescents aged 10–24 years represent over a quarter of the population (1.8 billion), 89% of whom live in developing countries. Their number is set to rise to about two billion by 2032. “Young people are the world’s greatest untapped resource,” writes UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
As per the study, although global health efforts have been successful in improving the health of children under five in the past few decades, this has not been matched by a similar response in older age groups. The IHME analysis reveal that HIV/AIDS, road traffic accidents and drowning caused a quarter of deaths in 10-14-year-olds globally in 2013.
@Agency report.
