Chronic health issues of adolescents: is the world listening?

Adolescence is a time for growth, development, increasing independence and also a time for forming new relationships. Chronic conditions such as mental health issues, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, obesity and epilepsy have a reciprocal relationship with these social and developmental processes and can have a serious impact on life both at home and at school.

In an effort to raise the profile of these issues facing adolescents and to communicate the accompanying health data in a more lively and accessible format, an innovative, multidisciplinary collaboration was initiated and led by Amanda Mason-Jones, Senior Lecturer in Global Public Health, Department of Health Sciences, and involving researchers at other university departments - Antonina Mikocka-Walus (Health Sciences); Sandra Pauletto, Patrick Titley (Theatre, Film and Television (TFTV); Jez Wells (Music); Darren Reed (Sociology); Alice Hall (English) and Juliana Mensah (Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR).

Together with composer Bartek Walus, film director Nik Morris and actress Katie-Marie Armstrong, they created a 360-degree narrative, musical and visual journey through the experiences of Jane, a young woman with a chronic medical problem, but an equal determination to not let this stop her succeeding in life.

Chronic diseases and disorders affect everyone but there are huge variations in the prevalence of them between countries and these differential risks are rarely explored. Data summarising the chronic health of adolescents worldwide is most often presented in large data sets or dull reports and rarely disseminated in any other way, remaining largely hidden from the public view.

'Jane's Story' was constructed from the primary accounts of young people and was presented through a speaker and a specially commissioned piece of music. Visual animations were created to vividly portray the challenges facing young people and also their strength and resilience to overcome them. The narrative was interspersed with sonified data on the global chronic health of adolescents.

The film premiered at York City Screen in March 2015.

https://youtu.be/swVz6t_4gTM