Adolescents News and Research

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New guidance to help adolescents and young adults living with and beyond cancer

Adolescents and young adults (AYA) living with and beyond cancer have unique needs and perspectives that clinicians should be aware of when providing health care.

22 Jun 2026

Study shows positive milestones shape the lives of youth

Which major life events matter to young people? A recent study by the University of Zurich (UZH) shows that adolescents and young adults primarily cite positive, everyday developmental steps as formative events, for example school and apprenticeships, friendships, first relationships, travel and moving out of their parents' home.

22 Jun 2026

Prolonged Instagram use may change how the brain perceives our bodies

Instagram use could influence not only how we see our bodies, but also how our brain perceives as "ours" the bodies we inhabit.

19 Jun 2026

HPV vaccination linked to sharp decline in cervical cancer deaths

High-income countries that initiated widespread administration of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine in the mid-2000s have experienced substantial declines in cervical cancer cases, marking a significant achievement in medicine.

18 Jun 2026

Teen sleep quality associated with mental health, BMI, and screen time

A teen's mental health, as well as their body mass index (BMI) and screen time, are significantly associated with their sleep quality, according to a new paper published June 10, 2026 in the open access journal PLOS One by Jianying Li of Shanxi University, China, and colleagues.

18 Jun 2026

Legal system contact increases mental health risks for youth

Youth who have contact with the US legal system may be at increased risk of mental health symptoms including anxiety, depression, hostility, and psychoticism, according to a study published June 17, 2026 in the open access journal PLOS One by Raquel V. Oliveira and Elizabeth Culatta from Augusta University, US.

18 Jun 2026

Smartphone apps and wearables help heart disease patients stay active

Smartphone apps, fitness trackers and wearable devices help people with heart disease get more physical activity in their daily lives, according to an analysis of previous research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association.

17 Jun 2026

Engineered cartilage grafts improve surgery for narrowed child airways

A study led by researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) demonstrated a new method of using decellularized cartilage with patient-specific cells to help enlarge the pediatric airways narrowed as a result of severe subglottic stenosis.

17 Jun 2026

Media pressure makes high-calorie food cues feel longer to teen girls

In 55 French female adolescents, high-calorie food images were perceived as lasting longer than low-calorie images during a temporal bisection task. Perceived media pressure strengthened this time-distortion effect, while body appreciation showed tentative evidence of reducing it after accounting for eating-disorder risk.

17 Jun 2026

Depression shapes how children pay attention to emotional faces

A smile. A frown. The faces a child pays closer attention to might offer invaluable insight into their mental health.

16 Jun 2026

Study shows branding on cannabis products appeals to youth

Unlike cigarettes or alcohol, cannabis products often come packaged as colorful gummies, chocolates, candies and snacks that can look remarkably similar to items found in a grocery store aisle.

16 Jun 2026

Persistent anxiety and depression may delay emotional maturity into midlife

A long-running Australian cohort study found that personality traits generally matured from early to middle adulthood, with agreeableness and conscientiousness rising and extraversion, openness, and neuroticism declining. People with persistent common mental disorders showed the clearest decline in neuroticism by midlife, but they still had higher emotional instability than peers without persistent mental health difficulties.

15 Jun 2026

New EHR-based marker flags transplant patients at high risk for organ rejection

A new multicenter study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai suggests that a novel electronic health record-based marker can help clinicians identify transplant patients at high risk for organ rejection due to not taking their medications as prescribed-and intervene before the rejection happens.

15 Jun 2026

Puerto Rico sees sharp rise in adolescent type 1 diabetes

The incidence of type 1 diabetes among teens in Puerto Rico more than doubled from 2009 to 2021 and remained elevated through 2024, with an average annual increase of 4.1 percent, according to a study being presented Saturday at ENDO 2026, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in Chicago, Ill.

14 Jun 2026

High social media use increases mental health risks for adolescents

Adolescents who spend at least two hours a day on social media are more likely to experience depressive symptoms and poorer wellbeing, with the strongest effects in early adolescence, according to new research.

11 Jun 2026

Teenage risk-taking linked to lower baseline dopamine levels

Teenage risk-taking, such as experimentation with alcohol, cannabis, nicotine and other substances, may reflect a compensatory response to lower baseline dopamine, the brain chemical for reward activity, suggests a new University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study, published today in Nature Communications.

11 Jun 2026

Physical punishment linked to detrimental childhood outcomes, UCL researchers warn

Hitting children (often referred to as smacking) by parents or caregivers as a form of punishment is linked to behavioral problems and worse exam results and should be prohibited in England and Northern Ireland as soon as possible, UCL researchers say.

11 Jun 2026

European study connects youth mental health to economic parity

Xabi Martinez-Mendia, a researcher at the EHU-University of the Basque Country, has analysed how adolescent psychotropic drug consumption is linked to gender inequality and economic factors in 32 European countries.

10 Jun 2026

Study finds indoor cats do not trigger child asthma flares

Asthma is the most common chronic disease and one of the main causes of hospitalization among children. The Global Asthma Network has estimated that its global prevalence is 9.1% for children and 11.0% for adolescents, but this percentage varies greatly between countries, regions, and environments.

10 Jun 2026

Injectable semaglutide may improve fertility outcomes in PMOS

Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz have published a proof-of-concept study in Fertility and Sterility demonstrating that injectable semaglutide may offer meaningful reproductive benefits for women with polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), formerly known as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

9 Jun 2026