Talking About Youth Health: An Example of Engaging Youth to Improve Child and Youth Health Indicators in British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

A project initially carried out in 2010 aimed to include youth as well as international child health and data experts in the process of establishing core indicators of child and youth health in the province of British Columbia, Canada. In 2015, trend data and some newly available measures were reviewed by youth and subject matter experts to consider progress against the core indicators established in 2010. The knowledge of experts in child health and development, combined with the lived experience and knowledge of youth, led to the identification of key areas to focus future health promotion efforts. Youth were also able to confirm qualitatively some of the positive quantitative trends seen in the data and to provide important context to the findings from their lived experience. Participants also raised some important questions about survey items used to capture youth’s experiences and the need moving forward to ensure that the development of such items include youth as early in the process as possible to ensure that items are not unnecessarily emotionally distressing and that they are capturing what researchers assume they are.