This article contains references to suicide.
Teenagers today are growing up in a world that is getting harder to live in.
Adolescents are facing unprecedented threats to their health and wellbeing — including climate change, mental illness, and digital harms — and governments aren’t keeping up, a major new global report warns.
The 2025 Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing, launched at this year's World Health Organization Health Assembly, said the challenges confronting young people are growing — but the investment in their future hasn't kept pace.
While adolescents make up nearly a quarter of the global population, they receive just 2.4 per cent of international health and development funding.
Professor Peter Azzopardi, commission member and leader of the Global Adolescent Health Group at Australia's Murdoch Children's Research Institute, said: "By 2030, we project that half of the world's adolescents will be living in settings where they experience multi-burden profiles of disease."
What challenges are young people facing?
The report outlines a complex set of issues that adolescents are facing globally.
Azzopardi said young people are contending with "new drivers" of poor health, including the accelerating impacts of climate change, wars, and rising obesity rates.
"Climate change affects us all, but it particularly affects young people. Climate anxiety, but also the direct impacts of climate displacement, places young people at a unique risk," he said.
Today's adolescents are the first to live their whole lives with the looming threat of climate change, with the report's estimates suggesting 1.8 billion young people will grow up in a world that is 2.8C hotter by 2100.
Rapid, unplanned urbanisation is also a concern, with the report noting its contribution to social isolation, insecure housing and unequal access to services.
The digital landscape, while providing access to information and connection, has also introduced serious challenges.
"Digital platforms can bring risks to young people, as well as harmful exposures," Azzopardi said.
The report also warns of the mental and physical toll of conflict and displacement, with millions of young people growing up or fleeing from war zones, with at least four active war zones in the world currently.
Almost a third of adolescent girls are projected to be out of education, employment, or training by 2030, and the number of healthy years lost to mental illness or suicide is expected to rise to 41 million, two million more than in 2015.
Azzopardi said mental health systems are failing to meet young people's needs.
"The current approaches that we have, which are predominantly driven through the health system, aren't effective and aren't working for them," he said.
In consultations, young people themselves called for better mental health literacy and an end to stigma.
A call for urgent investment
The commission found that without major intervention, nearly 90 per cent of young people in 2100 will be growing up in countries with limited opportunities and poor health outcomes.
"Adolescence can no longer be ignored," the report stated.
"The investments made in this generation of adolescents will determine human and planetary futures, for good or ill.
"The time to act is now."
"It's a real wake-up call that we need to invest in — and we need to invest now," Azzopardi said.
Despite making up a quarter of the global population and nearly 10 per cent of the total disease burden, adolescents receive just two cents for every health dollar spent globally.
"We've failed to really engage with young people meaningfully," Azzopardi said.
Six key recommendations
The commission has put forward a range of recommendations to shift outcomes for young people. These include:
— Prioritising youth voices in policy making and advocacy
— Establishing clear global goals to measure and track adolescent health and well-being
— Scaling up access to sexual and reproductive health services and protections against gender-based violence
— Strengthening actions within health and education sectors while reinforcing collaborations
— Limiting the exposure of advertising targeting adolescents
— Promoting and encouraging the healthy use of social media and online spaces
Readers seeking crisis support can ring Lifeline on 13 11 14 or text 0477 13 11 14, the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 and Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged up to 25). More information and support with mental health is available at beyondblue.org.au and on 1300 22 4636.
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