State Unprepared for Rising Teen Population, Study Says

A study released Monday warns that California is not prepared to meet the health needs of its exploding teenage population and offers recommendations for providing easier access to health care, increasing after-school programs and including youth in government.

The $200,000 study was prepared by UC San Francisco and the California Adolescent Health Collaborative, a group of more than 40 public and private organizations. Study authors estimate there are about 5 million teenagers in California. That number will rise to 6 million by 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Without easier access to health service, more teenagers eventually will suffer from a variety of mental and physical problems including AIDS, obesity and smoking-related ailments, the study concluded.

“If we don’t pay now, we’ll pay later,” said Claire Brindis, a UC San Francisco professor of pediatrics and one of the study’s authors.

Brindis and others involved in the study fear the population explosion could undermine progress in several key areas. California teenage birth rates fell by 28% from 1991 to 1998. In the same time period, juvenile homicide arrests dropped from 696 to 308.

The programs that contributed to the declines are isolated from each other and could be overwhelmed by the population wave without a comprehensive policy in place, the study said.

The study made eight core recommendations to improve adolescent health, including establishing a state office of youth that could advocate for youth issues, involving teenagers in the policymaking process and creating incentives for companies to adopt family-friendly policies like affordable child care.

Study authors see a deterioration of youth health in several areas. Every year, more than 170 California teenagers commit suicide, 28,000 are hospitalized for mental health disorders, and 59,000 become parents.

The numbers are especially frustrating to social services experts because many of the problems could be avoided with proper care and counseling. Many families do not take advantage of public programs like Healthy Families, which provides health insurance.

In cases where teenagers can obtain coverage on their own, many of them are confused by the paperwork or worry about confidentiality concerning reproductive issues.

“Usually, when girls get pregnant, all they know is ‘I can have an abortion,’ ” said Bernardo Estrada, a volunteer with the Hollywood Teen Community Project, a Childrens Hospital Los Angeles program. “They don’t know what their other options are.”

This lack of information is especially troubling because teenagers are forming habits that will affect the rest of their lives, doctors said.

“People’s health for the rest of their lives are developed in adolescence, you begin acquiring the habits that are the biggest killers then,” said Julia Causey, the medical services administrator for the Los Angeles Free Clinic on Beverly Boulevard, which sees about 6,400 teenagers annually.

The groups involved in the study already have begun trying to implement its plan, although talks are in the very beginning stages, authors said.

“If we neglect to keep investing in teens, then I think we will be looking at a crisis,” said Susan Rabinovitz, associate director of the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, who also was involved in the study.