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THE Vice Chancellor of the University of Medical Sciences in Ondo, Professor Adesegun Fatusi, has said it is paradoxical that the preventable deaths in Nigeria increases from childhood to adolescence and keeps rising, even though adolescents are seemingly robust and healthy and can be prevented.
Speaking at a University of Ibadan Research Foundation stakeholder’s consultation on “Strengthening Adolescent Health Policies with Innovations from Research,” Fatusi stated that while adolescents are a healthy and promising demographic, the rate of death in this age group has increased rapidly in the last 50 years because little emphasis is paid to young people.
Fatusi, the President of the Society for Adolescent and Young People’s Health in Nigeria (SAYPHIN), said over the years, adolescents are simply assumed to be healthy and therefore thought is not given to their health needs.
According to him, “the risk of dying in 1990, when you are between the ages of 15 and 24, was about half the risk of dying for children who are under five years of age. But by 2019, the data had shown that the risk of death among adolescents had overcome that risk among under five. And that is a big challenge.
“The data around mortality does not tell the complete story. In fact, it does not tell the most accurate story about young people. This data about morbidity is worse than what we see in mortality. Therefore, there is a need to begin to take action to ensure that we can truly be able to safeguard the lives of our adolescents.”
According to Professor Fatusi, adolescent health goes far beyond what occurs during the adolescent years because the foundation for adolescent health begins during pregnancy, and so health programmes for healthy adolescents begin early to ensure that mothers have healthy children who can continue to grow into adolescence.
He said an investment in adolescence is critical and must be improved to ensure that Nigerians can ripe many dividends, including healthy adults that are free of chronic diseases and a generation of Nigerians that are healthy.
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In improving the young people’s wellbeing, he stated that more attention should be focused on young people’s sexual and reproductive health as well as sexual and reproductive rights, nutrition, gender-based violence prevention, rising levels of drug use, violence, and injuries from commercial Okada riders.
According to him, “Addiction to phones, addiction to pornography, and addiction to information technology equipment are becoming a great challenge to us. And therefore, we cannot assume that all is well with us.
“So, we must look at how we can promote young people to become healthier so that they don’t fall sick and they don’t have health problems. We also must build an environment that is safe and supportive of them,” he added.
Commissioner for Health in Lagos State, Professor Akin Abayomi, stated that 50% of Nigerians are under the age of 20, and efforts should ensure that they become healthy and educated youth to generate the knowledge upon which Nigeria’s economy will depend.
Earlier, Director of the UI-research foundation, Professor Ayoade Oduola, said the forum is to get input from stakeholders on how best to implement interventions from researchers in academia, working with implementers and decision makers in the ministries, that will improve adolescent and youth health in Nigeria.
“With the knowledge in the university, we can work with the policymakers. We can come up with solutions that will safeguard the development and the future of the nation through our youths.”
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Professor Kayode Adebowale, who was represented by the deputy vice chancellor administration, Professor Peter Olapegba, declared that evidence-based strategies and targeted policy options to address these challenges in adolescents and youths’ health are critical for the future of Nigeria.
He added, “The decision-makers will benefit tremendously from access to all the information-research findings, examples of best practices, and innovations in efforts to foster asset-based, impact-driven policy options for the nation.”
