Youth engagement at The Lancet Child &amp; Adolescent Health
Authors: Esther Lau, Eglė Janušonytė, Chiamaka Nwachukwu, Kareem Zuhdi, Laura Marcela Aguirre-Martínez
Journal: The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health (2024)

In 2021, we made a commitment to expand our youth engagement at The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health and launched our inaugural Youth Advisory Panel, with eight youth advisors aged 16–24 years from diverse backgrounds globally. The Youth Advisory Panel sits alongside our International Advisory Board and has been influential in the journal's work in the past 3 years. The editorial team has valued their thoughtful feedback on content and suggestions for topics, and enjoyed discussing issues such as gender equity, climate change, a career in research, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth with them in podcasts and webinars, among many other projects. We are extremely grateful for their insights, contributions, and generosity. From the youth advisors' perspective, participating in the Youth Advisory Panel has been an enriching experience! We all joined at different stages in our personal and professional lives, and transitioned from high school to university, and from medical school to postgraduate training. The Panel has served as a platform for us to identify youth health issues that we felt could be better highlighted and to explore them through diverse mediums, including written contributions, podcasts, and journal club meetings. Most importantly, we feel that the Youth Advisory Panel serves as an exemplary model for how organisations should structure their practices on intergenerational and multicultural collaboration and leadership. Our engagement was consistently sought and valued. We were encouraged to contribute and take ownership of several projects. The past 3 years have contributed immensely to our growth—not only as individuals but also collectively. Although our perspectives and life goals are different, we have a common passion to advocate for young people's health, equity, and rights. We have cultivated valuable friendships with peers from around the globe, which we will hold dear even after our term ends. It is now time to recruit the second cohort of our Youth Advisory Panel for 2024–27. We are looking for eight young people aged 16–24 years who have lived experience of an illness or a disability that significantly affects them, a passion for health advocacy, or an interest in global child health and rights. Membership on the Youth Advisory Panel is an unpaid, purely advisory role, and there are no editorial duties. If you would like to express your interest, please find out more here. We declare no competing interests. EJ, CN, KZ, and LMA-M are current members of The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health's Youth Advisory Panel. Expanding our youth engagement—join us!In the past few decades, the growing demand for patient and public involvement in health research has meant that research about young people has increasingly shifted towards greater involvement of children and adolescents as co-creators of knowledge. On Feb 10, the Wellcome Trust published a report on the role, benefits, and potential of young people's involvement in health research. The rapid evidence review found clear benefits—youth participation improves the quality of the research, as young people can better identify questions and study methods that fit their generation's needs and experiences. Full-Text PDF A permanent chair in decision making: celebrating youth participationMeaningful youth engagement is a trending concept in the global health arena. In 2018, the UN Youth Strategy "Youth 2030" was announced, as the first ever UN system-wide strategy focusing on youth, intending to guide joint UN action for and with young people globally. This was followed by the launch of the WHO Youth Council in 2021. Following their lead, many global health organisations are making efforts to uphold the concept of meaningful youth engagement, and have created spaces for young people to take part in processes and decisions on issues concerning their own health. Full-Text PDF Our new youth advisory panelTo deliver child and adolescent health research, news, and insights on a global scale, who better to advise and contribute as advocates for young people than young people? Meet the new international youth advisory panel who are itching to transform their personal and professional experience into positive action. Full-Text PDF Our updated International Advisory Board and new Youth Advisory PanelAs The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health reaches its fourth birthday, we are delighted to announce our updated International Advisory Board. Our inaugural advisory board has been phenomenally helpful in shaping the journal and advising us on crucial areas of research within paediatrics and child and adolescent health. We are hugely grateful for their time and effort. Full-Text PDF