The role of the school in shaping the health of adolescents: Socio-cultural and regulatory aspects

Adolescent health is important because it determines the future health of adults, and because trends in this category are characterized by the most negative indicators compared to other age groups of the population.

Actualization of the importance of the problem of adolescent health in the structure of school innovations.

The study was carried out in 2022 by the staff of the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the form of a review based on the analysis of 92 relevant sources (scientific research and regulatory documents).

Although an intention to address the health of children and adolescents is recognized in Russia as a national task that requires an interdepartmental approach and actions from almost all ministries and departments, the reality is different. In schools, where children spend 70% of the day, the necessary conditions for their health have not been created. Two aspects of these conditions are considered — medical and educational — in the field of health. The medical aspect is associated with an insufficient number of medical rooms in educational institutions, the quality of their equipment, a lack of medical personnel, and the presence of contradictions in the regulatory framework on this issue. As a result, the actions of health workers in schools are limited mainly to medical examinations and vaccinations, instead of the nine main functions stated in the regulations. The educational aspect, on which the formation of a culture of students’ health depends also remains unrealized. Three reasons for the absence of the subject “Health” in the school curriculum and the peculiarities of the formation of the need for healthcare among schoolchildren, including with the help of the media, are considered.

A change in the state of two important aspects of the health of children and adolescents in the structure of school education — medical and educational — seems to be real in the case of solving regulatory and legal issues related to the elimination of existing contradictions in the information based on the issues of medical provision in educational institutions. Equally important is the introduction of indicators on the formation of a healthy lifestyle for various categories of the population, primarily children and adolescents, into the reporting forms of educational and medical organizations. Raising the level of public health culture and the formation of a unified preventive environment that ensures a healthy lifestyle should become a practical state task.