Healthy settings for young people in Canada : Des cadres sains pour les jeunes du Canada

The administration of the HBSC survey and the presentation of findings in this report were made possible by funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Division of Childhood and Adolescence. [...] Healthy Settings for Young People in Canada 1 1 the Introduction Preamble Knowledge about young people’s health behaviours and health outcomes – and the factors that influence them – is essential to the development of effective health education and school health promotion policy, programs, and practice. [...] Thus, the influences of home and school settings, peer relationships, and the socio-economic environment need to be explored if we are to fully understand the health and health behaviour patterns of school-aged young people. [...] First, in the developmental perspective, the study’s age groups of 11, 13, and 15 years (i.e., Canadian students in Grades 6 through 10) are selected to examine significant changes that occur in health behaviours and attitudes from the onset of puberty to the middle of adolescence. [...] Healthy Settings for Young People in Canada 5 The contribution of the HBSC study to the health of Canadian young people The HBSC study contributes to the health of Canada’s young people in a number of ways: • HBSC is a long-standing, efficient investment by the federal government in Canadian public health information (a total of five surveys have been conducted in Canada between 1989-90 and 2005-0