Resilience in Adolescent Health
The experience of adolescence can vary greatly depending on several factors such as family and community and poverty. Adolescents who face multiple challenges over time can experience negative effects on their learning, behavior, social interactions, and health into adulthood.1 Therefore, understanding the lifelong effects of challenges and the differences across adolescent groups means youth can benefit from tailored resources and services that match their unique needs during the transition from adolescence to adulthood.
Resilience is the ability to appropriately adapt to challenges despite the conditions.2 Resiliency can be learned and is an important part of adolescent development that can help promote a positive sense of identity, efficacy, and well-being. It is important to understand and utilize interpersonal, structural, and community strengths within an adolescent’s environment to help promote resiliency for those who have experienced chronic stress and/or trauma. Research and practice have found effective ways to promote resilience in adolescents. The following describes the more prevalent types of challenges that adolescents in the U.S. face along with how to promote resilience.
Continuously experiencing challenges or having multiple risk factors can create toxic stress, which is when the body experiences “prolonged activation of the stress response systems in the brain and body.”3 Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) can include neglect, abuse, poverty, and witnessing and/or experiencing violence. Experiencing multiple ACEs has been shown to negatively affect a person’s health over the life course and can even affect multiple generations.4
Additionally, allostatic load is a measure of “wear and tear on the body caused by [a] constant adaptation to stress.” Research on high allostatic load has found that there is a tipping point at which the body’s ability to self-regulate is overburdened and can no longer function properly. This can have cumulative and harmful long-term effects for youth who are simultaneously dealing with toxic stress and the normal stressors related to adolescent physical and cognitive development.5
The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University has found four key “counterbalancing factors” that can lead to resilience in the face of toxic stress and adverse childhood experiences. The purpose of these factors is to help a child or adolescent be able to develop skills such as planning, monitoring, and regulating behavior. These skills can help an individual have positive experiences and be able to better adapt to their circumstances. These key factors include:
- Promoting supportive adult-child relationships.
- Building a sense of self-efficacy and perceived control.
- Providing opportunities to strengthen adaptive skills and self-regulatory capabilities (for middle-school youth and high school youth).
- Encouraging and supporting involvement with sources of faith and/or cultural traditions.6
Research has found that living in a neighborhood that has little to no economic viability in childhood and adolescence was the “single strongest predictor of biological risk” for having chronic health issues in adulthood, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and depression.7 Furthermore, in the same study it was found that youth who lived in low-income areas that had higher unemployment and poverty rates showed higher levels of allostatic load in adulthood.8
Resiliency factors within neighborhoods can be utilized to help lessen the effects of a neighborhood’s economic status and promote positive outcomes for adolescents. There is also the approach of working with local businesses to help prevent child abuse and neglect.
Resources
How to Create a Mental Health Crisis Plan: A Guide for Young People (Youth Generated Content)
A mental health crisis can be overwhelming for youth, especially when they’re not sure where to turn. This article by a YE4C Editorial Board member offers a step-by-step approach to building a mental health crisis response plan so young people can feel more prepared, supported, and safe during difficult moments.
Youth Risk Behavior Survey
This resource from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describe trends in youth behaviors: diet, physical activity, and sleep.
Bullying as an ACE
Bullying is a potentially traumatic adverse childhood experience or ACE that can have negative, lasting effects on a person. This fact sheet describes strategies used by schools to address ACEs and prevent bullying, which can also be applied in other areas.