Y-Check Ghana with the aim of reaching out to adolescents to understand their health issues and the importance of having routine health check-ups has organized a dissemination workshop on research findings for key stakeholders in the education sector within the Cape Coast metropolis.
The research, with support from the World Health Organization, aims at developing a routine health check-up intervention for adolescents and also strengthening the existing Ghana Health Services (GHS), Ghana Education Service (GES) health screening that was introduced in Senior High Schools in 2017.
The research being conducted in four communities in the Cape Coast metropolis, namely Abura, Effutu, Ekon, and Kwaprow is focusing on younger adolescents between the ages of 10 to 14 years and older adolescents between the ages of 15 to 19.
Speaking exclusively to ATL FM NEWS, Co-investigator and a Senior Lecturer with the School of Public Health at the University of Ghana, Dr. Franklin Glozah stated that, one of their findings revealed young adolescents preferred to have professional doctors undertake their medical screening and facilities close to them.
“I guess what they were telling us was that they wanted professionals to be very professional with their work in terms of their attitude and the way these health professionals relate to them. Through that, we were able to determine some key health areas such as STIs, mental health issues, anaemia and a host of other health areas that they had indicated were very prominent within the Metropolis.”
He indicated that Y-Check Ghana hopes to pilot the research further indicating that adolescents need some form of guidance when it comes to their health.
On his part, Dr. Eric Koka, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the University of Cape Coast and also a co-investigator said the interventions will be routine check-ups for the adolescents in the schools as well as the communities.
Y-Check Ghana reaches out to the youth in order to guarantee early detection and find possible solutions that can be employed to help them.
The Y-Check project is sponsored by the World Health Organisation led in Ghana by Dr. Benedict Weobong who is a Senior Lecturer in Social and Behavioural Sciences at the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, and a Global Mental Health Epidemiologist.
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Source: Anthony Sasu Ayisadu/ATLFMNEWS
