Adolescence in public health - Revisiting 25 years of publications

Abstract

This study aims to develop scientific knowledge on adolescence in publications from 1996 to 2020 in Journal Ciência & Saúde Coletiva (C&SC). This integrative systematic review was based on a bibliographic survey in SciELO’s da-tabase, with the string word search strategy “Ado-lesc $” in title, abstract, and keywords of works published in the C&SC between 1996 and 2020. The abstracts of 432 publications were analyzed by age group, gender, skin color, social stratum, sample, place, methodology, and risk and protec-tive factors. The results show that most of the abstracts brought studies exclusively focused on the adolescent population, with a smaller volume on children or adults. Most of the samples were col-lected in schools, followed by health services. The topics addressed in the papers are related to ado-lescents’ individual attributes, family attributes, peer relationships; social scope, health conditions and diseases, accidents and violence, and health services. There is a need for special attention to adolescents’ health requiring reflections in national academic production, aiming at systemic and complex knowledge focused on adolescent health promotion aspects, following the existing national legislation and laws.