Annotation: The National Initiative to Improve Adolescent Health (NIIAH) is a collaborative effort to improve the health, safety, and well-being of adolescents and young adults. Launched as a partnership between two federal agencies -- the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, and the Health Services and Resources Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Office of Adolescent Health -- the national initiative aims to achieve the 21 Critical Health Objectives for Adolescents & Young Adults found in Healthy People 2010. These objectives focus on individual health outcomes and related behaviors that pose the greatest threat to the health of adolescents. They focus on the following areas: mortality, unintentional Injury, violence, mental health & substance abuse, reproductive health, and chronic disease. Through the National Adolescent Health Information Center, NIIAH has developed a how-to guide, Improving the Health of Adolescent and Young Adults: A Guide for States and Communities, which can be downloaded free of charge from CDC at http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/NationalInitiative. Another resource created by the National Initiative is the Partners Resources database, an online tool which provides a comprehensive listing of adolescent health activities and resources available from NIIAH partner organizations.
Keywords: Adolescent health, Adolescent health programs, Adolescents, Collaboration, Electronic publications, Federal programs, Healthy People 2010, Online databases