Despite its legal significance, 18 can no longer be regarded as the start of adulthood. According to the British Medical journal the Lancet brain goes on maturing and is not fully developed until at least the age of 25.
In a series of papers on adolescent health published in the Lancet on Wednesday, scientists have highlighted other alarming consequences shared among the total of 1.2 billion adolescents.
The Lancet revealed that injuries accounted for 40 per cent of deaths in 10-to 24-year-olds worldwide. This included injuries from car accidents and intentional harm caused by suicide and violence, with vehicle crashes the leading single cause of death.
The morbidity and mortality estimates suggested that adolescents are significantly affected by injuries and neuropsychiatric disorders. “Homicides, unintentional injuries related to road traffic accidents and suicides are major cause of death. Each year 1.4 million adolescents die from road traffic injuries, childbirth complications, suicide, AIDS, violence and other causes,” it said.
Even though the experts say that more children have moved into older age groups, “yet too little attention and too few resources are devoted to issues facing older children,” it added. The experts have noted that absolute number of adolescents is expected to rise until 2050. While mortality rates for children under the age of five declined by more than 80 per cent in many countries in the past 50 years, adolescent deaths had improved only marginally, they said.
The over all condition of girls do not seem to have improved. According to the special adolescent health issue by the Lancet-Girls still lag behind boys in secondary school enrolment and completion in many regions. In the least developed countries, more than a third of young women aged 15-24 years cannot read compared with a quarter of their male counterparts. Similarly, across developing countries (excluding China), 83 per cent of boys aged 15-19 years use some form of media on a weekly basis (either TV, radio, or newspapers and magazines) compared with 72 per cent of their female peers.
“About 60 per cent of adolescents living with HIV are girls. In fact, across developing countries (excluding China), male adolescents are more likely than female adolescents to have comprehensive and correct knowledge of HIV—at 30 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively — and more likely to use condoms,” said the experts.
Early marriage is a common experience for many girls and raises the likelihood of early childbearing. More than a third of young women aged 20-24 years in developing countries (excluding China) were married or in a union by age 18 years.