However, Culyer and Wagstaff [ 2 ] show that the need for health care can be defined in many ways: such as, severity of disease, or the ability to benefit or the minimum amount of resources required to exhaust the capacity to benefit; and goes on to demonstrate that each of these meanings affects the distribution of health services differently. [...] Even though under-five mortality appears to have stagnated in the wealthiest quintile and improved in the poorest quintile there exists significant inequality between the poor and the rich, also being significantly higher in the Northern and Upper West regions and varies between rural and urban areas. [...] 5: Age of Adolecent Pregnancy, 2001-2006 Source: Based on national data of teenage registrants at antenatal clinics The Adolescent Health & Development Programme The adolescent health and development programme aims at promoting the health of young people, preventing and responding to health problems from early, unprotected, unwanted sex, use and misuse of drugs including cigarettes and alcohol, po. [...] Challenges and Gaps in Child Health Programmes Health problems and needs for the various groupings of children and youth are diverse and have led to different programme components usually with varied and different sources of external funding. [...] The success of the school health programme depends on the joint commitment and partnership of the health and education sectors.

Socioeconomic conditions are known to be major determinants of health at all stages of life, from pregnancy through childhood and adulthood. "Life-course epidemiology" has added a further dimension to the understanding of the social determinants of health by showing an association between early-life socioeconomic conditions and adult health-related behaviors, morbidity, and mortality. Sensitive and critical periods of development, such as the prenatal period and early childhood, present significant opportunities to influence lifelong health. Yet simply intervening in the health system is insufficient to influence health early in the life course. Community-level approaches to affect key determinants of health are also critical. Many of these issues were raised in the 1995 National Academies book, Children's Health, the Nation's Wealth. The present volume builds upon this earlier book with presentations and examples from the field. Focusing on Children's Health describes the evidence linking early childhood life conditions and adult health; discusses the contribution of the early life course to observed racial and ethnic disparities in health; and highlights successful models that engage both community factors and health care to affect life course development.

In sub-Saharan Africa, older people make up a relatively small fraction of the total population and are supported primarily by family and other kinship networks. They have traditionally been viewed as repositories of information and wisdom, and are critical pillars of the community but as the HIV/AIDS pandemic destroys family systems, the elderly increasingly have to deal with the loss of their own support while absorbing the additional responsibilities of caring for their orphaned grandchildren. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa explores ways to promote U.S. research interests and to augment the sub-Saharan governments' capacity to address the many challenges posed by population aging. Five major themes are explored in the book such as the need for a basic definition of "older person," the need for national governments to invest more in basic research and the coordination of data collection across countries, and the need for improved dialogue between local researchers and policy makers. This book makes three major recommendations: 1) the development of a research agenda 2) enhancing research opportunity and implementation and 3) the translation of research findings.