Nutrition and Fitness

One of the Department of Health's primary goals is to promote healthy lifestyles.  Developing strong nutrition and physical fitness habits is especially important for teens so that they can maintain those habits throughout their lives.

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New Jersey Student Health Survey

Every odd numbered year, the NJ Department of Education reports on trends in teen health behaviors through the the New Jersey Student Health Survey. 

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Suicide Prevention

The NJ Department of Health provides access to support and resources to help prevent suicide among residents.

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Teen Health

Lifelong health behaviors and habits are being established during the adolescent years, ages 10-19.  While teens are generally healthy, the adolescent years do present a variety of health challenges mostly   due to risk-taking behaviors of teens related to tobacco, alcohol, and drug use, sex, violence, bullying, suicide and motor vehicle use.

Mental health or other chronic health conditions such as asthma, obesity and diabetes may also emerge during the teen years.  In our increasingly complex and social media-focused society, giving teens the skills needed to navigate these challenges is critically important. Think, Act, Grow (TAG) is a national initiative focusing attention on making the health, safety and development of teens a high priority. Teens need opportunities to make healthy choices and to have supportive relationships and safe places to go.  With these opportunities, teens will have the skills and experience needed to become healthy, productive adults.

Teen Health Projects

Adolescent Health staff work to improve health, promote healthy youth development and reduce risky behaviors in teens, ages 10-19.  We invest in our youth population to ensure NJ adolescents thrive and become healthy, productive adults.  Adolescent Health administers two grant projects: School Health NJ and Teen Pregnancy Prevention

The New Jersey Adolescent and Young Adult (AYAH) Collaborative Improvement and Innovative Network (CoIIN)

The New Jersey Adolescent and Young Adult (AYAH) Collaborative Improvement and Innovative Network (CoIIN) is a state team whose work is aimed at increasing preventive well care visits for adolescents as well as improving the quality of those visits.  This project is sponsored by the National Resource Center (NRC) and the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP). 

Using 2013-2015 data from a NJ Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) report, a greater than 50% disparity was identified for adolescent preventive well care visits at FQHCs (averaging about 45%) as compared to private physician offices (averaging about 97%).  The goal of the NJ AYAH CoIIN is to increase the FQHC adolescent visit rate to achieve the Healthy People 2020 goal of 75.6%.  State Team members will be participating in nationally-sponsored collaborative learning activities including, but not limited to: webinars, facilitated conference calls and regularly scheduled meetings.

Teen Health Resources
Last Reviewed: 9/18/2018