Adolescence is a time of unique growth and opportunity. Good health and wellbeing in adolescence brings benefits across the life-course and into the next generation. The Centre for Adolescent Health generates knowledge and provides training for practitioners and policymakers about the best investments for healthy development during the adolescent years.
The Centre for Adolescent Health is a world-leading technical and research group based in Melbourne, Australia.
- In our research we work with partners across Australia and with leading groups in both high and low income countries across the world.
- We are Australia’s leading provider of education and training on adolescent health and have trained professionals from across the globe.
- We work with policy makers across sectors, nationally and internationally, and are the World Health Organization’s only globally oriented Collaborating Centre in adolescent health outside Western Europe.
We are part of
The Royal Children's Hospital campus in Melbourne, Australia. Our key partners for Research and Education are the
Murdoch Children's Research Institute, and the University of Melbourne,
Department of Paediatrics.
We work closely with The Royal Children’s Hospital’s
Department of Adolescent Medicine including its specialist services in eating disorders, gender identity and chronic illness.
What is adolescence?
Adolescence is the phase of life stretching between childhood and adulthood. During adolescence, an individual acquires the physical, cognitive, emotional and social capabilities, together with the economic resources that provide the foundation for later life health and wellbeing.
How we conceptualise and define adolescence influences the scope and focus of laws, policies, and programmes intended to protect and empower adolescents. For these reasons, the Centre for Adolescent Health believes in a definition of adolescence as 10 - 24 years of age, which aligns closely with patterns of adolescent growth and popular understandings of this life phase.
Promoting wellbeing and learning in the middle years
The Centre for Adolescent Health has released a new policy brief,
Promoting wellbeing and learning in the middle years: an
opportune time for intervention.
The document is based on data collected as part of the
Childhood to Adolescence Transition Study. It summarises some of the issues occurring for students aged 8-14 years and why greater investment in this period would be beneficial. It calls for the government to introduce a health promoting framework that aims to strengthen
curriculum around social and emotional learning, improve the primary to secondary school transition, and enable more effective links between education and health services. It also provides more specific recommendations for government, schools and educators to help maximise the support provided to
students aged 8-14 years.
COVID-19 and adolescent health
View helpful COVID-19 resources.