Adolescence and Chronic Illness: A Public Health Concern

The prevalence of chronic illness or disability in adolescence has increased in recent years due to medical advances, and adolescents are now more than ever able to lead a productive life even in spite of serious illness. In the past, children with many diseases would not reach adolescence, but over the last decade or more the survival rate for children with cystic fibrosis, for spina bifida and congenital heart disease has increased. The old morbidity (infectious disease, poor housing, poverty, lack of immunisation) has been exchanged with the new morbidity of adolescence, where a longer life expectancy is followed by an increase in life-long disability. The concern in chronic illness include medical, psychological, physiological, biological, reproductive, cognitive and social aspects. Practitioners of the healing arts must become familiar with the most common disabilities likely to afflict children and adolescents so that appropriate evaluation, treatment, and management may occur. This book will cover a broad area of chronic illness in adolescence written by leading experts in this field.