The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS have jointly launched global standards for quality health-care services for adolescents.

Adolescent: WHO defines individuals between 10 and 19 years of age as adolescents.

Key Messages:

The primary intention of the standards is to improve the quality of care for adolescents in government healthcare services; however, they are equally applicable to facilities run by NGOs and those in the private sector.

The ultimate purpose of implementing the standards is to increase adolescents’ use of services and, thus, to contribute to better health outcomes.

Standard 1: Adolescent’s health literacy

Standard 2: Community support

Standard 3: Appropriate package of services

Standard 4: Providers’ competencies

Standard 5: Facility characteristics

Standard 6: Equity and non-discrimination

Standard 7: Data and quality improvement

Standard 8: Adolescents’ participation

The documents released with the launch of the Standards provide

• the intent of each standard
• measurable criteria for each standard
• implementation guide
• tools to conduct surveys; collect data
• scoring sheet for data analysis
• policy brief

Useful Links:

Link to the Press release:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/health-standards-adolescents/en/

Link to the Standards and criteria (Volume 1):

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/183935/1/9789241549332_vol1_eng.pdf?ua=1

Link to the Implementation Guide (Volume 2):

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/183935/4/9789241549332_vol2_eng.pdf?ua=1

Link to the data collection tools (Volume 3):

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/183935/5/9789241549332_vol3_eng.pdf?ua=1

Link to the scoring sheets for data analysis (Volume 4):

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/183935/6/9789241549332_vol4_eng.pdf?ua=1

Link to the policy brief:

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/184035/1/WHO_FWC_MCA_15.06_eng.pdf?ua=1