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.

This book makes recommendations for how Ghana can mainstream youth issues in its development strategies, providing baseline evaluations of socio-economic issues that particularly affect the youth demographic, such as underemployment, a lack of access to quality education and poverty.

This book highlights the emerging research and policy development efforts to address child and adolescent behavioral health in Sub-Saharan Africa, where mental health policy is at an early stage and in need of context-specific attention to its successes and shortcomings. A diverse range of researchers, with expertise on relevant policy in both the region as a whole and country-specific contexts, including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda, outline theoretically informed, culturally appropriate, evidence-based, and youth- and family-focused service models. The first work of its kind with an exclusive focus on the understudied region of Sub-Saharan Africa, this text: Provides an overview of the current state of child and adolescent behavioral health in the region Evaluates empirical work on risk and protective factors influencing behavioral outcomes Highlights emerging intervention research and dialogue on what works to improve child and adolescent behavioral health Offers insight and strategies on how to advance child and adolescent behavioral health in policy, research, and practice Child Behavioral Health in Sub-Saharan Africa: Towards Evidence Generation and Policy Development is a unique reference that offers guidance for current and future policy-makers, researchers, practitioners, and students as they seek to invest and engage in the healthy development of a future generation.

This book is a study that investigates the phenomenon of "streetism"--the manner of life of homeless or unmonitored youth on the streets of Accra, Ghana, and other urban centers in a country where barrenness and childlessness are socially undesirable. The study utilizes a qualitative, ethnographic, and critical theory-based approach to present a socio-culturally nuanced addition to the literature on street children. The work engages in theological reflection on the basis of the experiences of poverty and marginalization of the youth on the streets and for their liberation. This thesis also utilizes an intercultural methodology to examine the causes of streetism and liberation praxis for its eradication. The findings of the study include how poverty, dropping out of school, breakdown of the extended family systems, parental death, urbanization, adventure, and earning of personal income influence the migration of youth to the streets. The study also examines the effects of rape and the resilient and hopeful attitudes of the homeless youth. The study proposes pastoral responses on three ecological levels. At the macro level, advocacy is proposed for addressing the problems embedded in social structures, and government policies and ideologies. At the meso-level congregational and community response is offered to deal with issues emanating from local communities and institutions. Dealing with the psychosocial effects at the micro level, the study offers pastoral counseling for street youth and parents, and individual, group, and narrative counseling approaches for individuals and groups within the community.