For youth workers and youth-serving organizations, making a commitment to improve adolescent health outcomes can be as complex as making a commitment to improving academic achievement. Health, like education, has an entire system behind it. Given the data on gaps in access to health information and services, however, it is important for youth workers to have some concrete ways to respond.

In Forum Focus: What’s Health Got to Do With It? we attempt to examine practical strategies for integrating a health focus into existing programs and practices. In research update, we summarize data about teens’ access to health care and services, in on the ground, we describe youth-centered strategies for integrating health education into youth programs, and in voices from the fields, we interview Claire Brindis from the National Adolescent Health Information Center at UCSF and Kristin Teipel of the Konopka Institute about the complimentary nature of the two fields.