Violence in Adolescence - Vol. IIApproximately 1 in 6 people (1.2 billion people) globally are adolescents aged 10-19 years old. Adolescence is a crucial period of human development with rapid physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and sexual development. It is also a period typically characterised by increased risk taking as adolescents test boundaries and define their identities (WHO). During this period, young people are at increased risk of being victims, perpetrators and witnesses of violence. This includes physical violence; neglect; sexual violence, including harassment, exploitation and abuse; psychological and emotional violence; economic violence and forced labour; and peer violence, including cyber bullying and gang violence and dating and intimate partner violence. Exposure to violence in adolescence is associated with negative psychosocial, educational, health, and interpersonal relationship outcomes, often persisting into later, life making it a key public health concern.
Adolescent populations are not evenly distributed across the world, constituting a relatively high proportion of the population in low and middle-income countries as compared to high-income countries. Historically, the unique health issues associated with adolescence have been relatively neglected in research. This is partly due to uncertainty about how best to explore violence in the context of balancing adolescents’ needs for protection with their growing desire for autonomy. However, the increasing recognition of the importance of adolescent health is reflected in a number of international strategies such as the Sustainable Development Goals agenda, and the Global Strategy for Women’s Children’s and Adolescents’ health.
Taking a global view, this Research Topic aims to bring together critical perspectives on ‘violence in adolescence’, and to offer conceptual and theoretical insights on how to understand, measure and respond to violence in adolescence as it relates to adolescents’ sexual and reproductive health. We seek contributions that:
• Provide data on the prevalence and types of violence in adolescence in varied contexts, including homes, schools and work places.
• Offer theoretical or conceptual insights to better understand the drivers of violence during adolescents and how best to measure and respond to them.
• Provide guidance on key ethical issues when conducting research on violence during adolescence and how to respond to them.
• Take an intersectional approach to consider the experience of violence of marginalised adolescents including those living with disabilities and LGBTQI+ adolescents.
• Consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and responsive non-pharmaceutical interventions on violence during adolescence and the impact on health outcomes in general and sexual and reproductive health outcomes in particular.
We encourage a wide range of submission types, including empirical findings, theoretical papers, comment articles, critical reviews, and systematic reviews. We promote the decolonisation of public health in terms of challenging and critiquing inequitable policies and contemporary legacies of colonialist and racist histories, and promoting work from researchers whose lives and work has been directly impacted by such policies. We also promote the inclusion of voices of adolescents.