Science Headlines - Teenagers

Science Headlines - Teenagers

An information service for media in New Zealand

For more information you may contact any of the following scientists directly.

21 May 2007

As a weekend “horror crash” brings the media spotlight once again upon teenagers, Science Headlines talks to six New Zealand researchers about the teenage years – an entirely modern phenomenon. Find out why teenagers don’t wear seatbelts and whether the driving age should be raised; hear about the biggest health and wellbeing survey ever undertaken and learn about a project empowering young people to bust the stereotypes of South Auckland.

1. Professor Peter Gluckman, an endocrinologist and fetal physiologist, is Director of the Liggins Institute at The University of Auckland. The Liggins Institute conducts research focused on growth, development and ageing, with a particular interest on the the impact of fetal and child health on diseases in later life.

"Until recently, the ages when young people become sexually and psychosocially mature have generally been matched. Back in Paleolithic times, girls had their first menstrual period at around eleven or twelve years of age. This would have matched the level of psychosocial maturity they needed to function as adults in a hunter-gatherer society. As humans settled and disease and poor nutrition became more common, the age of onset of puberty slowly increased – in parallel with the increasing complexity of society.

"In the past 100 years, something unexpected has happened. Better medicine and nutrition have led to a drop in the age of puberty, while the world has continued to increase in complexity. We now know that young people's brains don't finish maturing until they're in their mid-twenties, but the age when girls reach menache (their first period) is approaching its evolutionarily determined norm. In European populations the average age of a girl's first period is now 12.6 - whereas in 1830 it was 17.

"This gap, spanning the teenage years, is an entirely modern phenomenon - and one that we need to deal with in proactive and positive ways. Adjusting human biology to match society would be impracticable, unethical and potentially dangerous, so the challenge is for society to adjust its structures to cope with this new biological mismatch."

2. Associate Professor Louise Nicholson is a neuroanatomist at The University of Auckland researching molecular mechanisms of brain function in health and disease.
Website: http://www.health.auckland.ac.nz/anatomy/staff/louise_nicholson.html

“There is a lot of important research being done on the wiring of the brain. As children grow, new wiring is happening constantly. New connections are being formed. Research published last year showed that young people’s brains are still developing into their mid-twenties. So it’s not just a teenager’s body that is growing and changing – their central nervous system is taking off as well.

“It’s amazing really. Once brain cells are committed, it takes a really special environment to get them to change. But the central nervous system of a young person is very different to an adult’s one. In a young person, everything is still ‘plastic’ – able to change and adapt. They can suffer a major brain insult, and still make a recovery that an adult might find hard, if not impossible to achieve – this is because young brain cells still have this wonderful plasticity.

“We’re not all the same. The way the brain develops is influenced by the stimuli it receives. A young person needs to have all sorts of different experiences to make sure they are able to process, to comprehend, to make rational decisions, to evaluate risk and articulate their thoughts. These are crucial learning experiences that help to make us who we are.”

3. Dr Sue Bagshaw is Senior Medical Officer at the Youth Health Centre in Christchurch, Chair of the Collaborative for Research and Training in Youth Health and Development, and Senior Lecturer in Adolescent Health at the University of Otago.
Website: www.collaborative.org.nz

“Young people at 15 now are not expected to take adult roles, even though 100-150 years ago the expectation was that they would make a full contribution to society. We know from the latest research that brain development is not complete until the age of 25. These developing brains need nurturing - but they can't develop well unless they are used, and that means allowing young people to enjoy the challenges of participating and being involved in doing things, not just being "done to"!

“By actively involving young people in our research, we can find out what they think about such things as wearing seat belts in the back seats of cars, and the ways in which they could or would access health care. This helps inform our health promotion and our health service provision so that we can provide facilities that young people will use - rather than just making an adult decision for them, and then being disappointed by young people’s non-participation.

“Our seat belt research was trying to find out why the use of seat belts in Christchurch were significantly lower than the national rate. Young people said that they were fed up with being labelled as a problem, and constantly being “picked on” by police. Their logic for not wearing seatbelts came out of their perception that the rear seat was a much safer space, and Christchurch is safer because it is flat. They felt that young people should be rewarded for wearing seat belts rather than punished for not wearing them, and that effort should be made to make them more “styley”. They also suggested that adverts should be specific about rear seat belts and give technical reasons why they should be worn.”

4. Dr Dorothy Begg, is an injury epidemiologist at the Injury Prevention Research Unit, Department of Preventive & Social Medicine, University of Otago

“The graduated drivers licensing system was introduced in 1987 – before that you could get your full licence the day you turned 15. So we’ve always had a very young licensing age in New Zealand.”

“The main research that I am leading at present is a large follow up study of newly–licensed drivers. The aim of this study is to examine a range of driving-related factors and their relationship with traffic crashes and convictions during the first year or so of driving. We are following newly licensed drivers as they progress through the graduated driver licensing system to find out about their driving experiences as a learner driver, who has supervised their driving, what courses they have done, their compliance with the driving restrictions (night-time driving curfew and passenger restriction), driving behaviour (including a wide range of risky driving behaviours), alcohol and other drug use, and a measure of impulsivity and sensation seeking. We are obtaining crash and conviction records by self-report and, with the participant's consent, from the official records.

"Much of our previous research has examined national databases such as police traffic crash reports or hospital admissions data. But, we know that many crashes are not reported to the police. Also, the national databases do not, and realistically cannot be expected to, contain the type of information on driver behaviour that is necessary for the development of policy and programmes for young drivers.

“The one thing that we could do now that would almost certainly improve road safety for young people in New Zealand is to align the licence age with other countries. In Australia and Sweden you can’t drive alone until you’re 18 – here it’s 15.5. It’s the age they can drive on their own that is the critical age. Supervised drivers do not crash very often.

“Another factor that consistently comes through in research is that the first six months of driving is the time of highest crash risk, irrespective of age. Although, the younger the learner driver the higher the risk. Of course overseas research of licensed drivers doesn’t include 15 year old drivers because they don’t have 15 year olds driving!”

5. Dr Simon Denny is Principal Investigator of the Youth2007 project, undertaken by the Adolescent Health Research Group, based at the School of Population Health, The University of Auckland. The data-gathering phase of Youth 2007 has just got underway, and will continue until September 2007. The initial reports will be released in 2008.
Website: www.youth2000.ac.nz

“The surveillance of young people’s health and wellbeing is vitally important. New Zealand’s Youth 2007 survey builds on the successful Youth2000 project. We will involve 11,000 13-18 year old at 100 schools up and down the country, finding out how things have changed since 2001. Are things for young people in New Zealand getting worse or better?

“The project doesn't just focus on the problems. We want to take a holistic approach and find out more about the strengths of young people, and what protects them from harm. In 2001 we found that over 90% of young people enjoyed school; and had caring and supportive families that they valued. However, we also identified some concerning mental and sexual health issues, and risk-taking behaviours. We need to find out more about these in 2007.

“We'll be using some innovative technology to gather the data: touch screen ‘internet tablets’. They work because they’re private, portable and appeal to young people. It also allows us to use 'branching questions’. The questionnaire automatically adjusts to the user’s responses: so if they say that they don’t smoke, they then don't get asked lots of pointless questions about their smoking habits. It also means that our data is accurate, and can quickly be analysed and used by the research team. What the team has created is unique, and sets a new standard internationally for this type of research.

“Issues have changed since 2001. Obesity is now a major concern, so this time we’ll be measuring height, weight and waist circumference, creating the first large national dataset about young people at this crucial developmental stage. Questions about P, party pills, texting, cell phones have also been added. And because we were struck by the importance of school life in Youth2000, we wanted to look at the factors that make a happy, healthy school environment in a bit more depth this time out.

“Youth 2000 showed that although teenagers are under a lot of pressure, most of them are healthy and happy. Youth 2007 is going to give us definitive information about young people, as told by young people.”

6. Dr Tim McCreanor talks about the ‘Photovoice’ project. Dr McCreanor is a social scientist at Massey University’s Whariki Research Group, which works in partnership with Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SHORE). Whariki is dedicated to the tautoko of Maori communities through providing high quality research.

Website: http://www.whariki.ac.nz/Research_team/TimMcCreanor.htm http://www.shore.ac.nz/projects/youth_photovoice.htm

“Through community organisations we recruited two groups of young researchers, one in Clendon, one in Mangere. We gave them disposable cameras, and asked them to capture the good and not so good things about where they live. Then, with Whariki researchers, they debated and highlighted the most important points: the diversity, friendliness and vibrancy of their home turf were valued. Problems with alcohol, gambling and fast food outlets, graffiti, roaming dogs and traffic needed attention.

“Both groups created presentations from their photographs, explaining what they represented, and why they were significant. They presented their work to their local community boards, and at the Ministry of Youth Development to wide acclaim, even though none of the young people had ever presented to such audiences before.

“The ultimate challenge was to share their work with their peers. Both groups pulled in ‘standing-room-only’ crowds at a national youth conference, and took great pride in being able to represent their neighbourhoods in ways that busted stereotypes and fears about life in South Auckland.

“The young people involved in this project truly worked in partnership with the Whariki staff. In fact, they will be co-authors on a research paper with the will be submitted to the New Zealand Journal of Social Policy.

“Participatory approaches like ‘Photovoice’ can give authentic community insight –getting to the heart of young people’s perspectives of the dynamics, tensions, and potentials in neighbourhoods. We’re really pleased that it built skills and confidence among the young participants. It’s also raised important issues in decision-making circles in compelling ways and advanced the Whariki team’s understanding of different approaches to this kind of work.”

Science Headlines is a service managed by the Royal Society of New Zealand and funded by the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology.

ENDS

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