Description
Background: Adolescent health and well-being are critical for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3, “health for all at all ages”. The shift to low carbon technologies (e.g., hydro, solar and wind) will result in higher demand for certain minerals and metals and management of resource development projects. In African countries with low HID, the focus on mining projects is seen as fundamental to their economic growth. Hence, it is predicted that health impacts attributable to industrial mining will increase. More empirical evidence is needed to investigate the impacts on stratified community sub-groups, including adolescents in order to understand the determinants and mechanisms through which industrial mining impacts health and address evidence gaps that hamper progress on adolescent health in disadvantaged settings in sub-Saharan Africa.
Methods: In this study, a multi-method qualitative approach was followed. From May to July 2022, 21 key informant interviews (KIIs) were carried out with health professionals or other professionals whose work is concerned with adolescent health, as well as four focus group discussions (FGDs) with parents of adolescents in two rural districts affected by mining projects in Mozambique. The data collected were analysed thematically.
Results: The combined findings from the KIIs and FGDs revealed that sexually transmitted infections, respiratory diseases, malaria and diarrhoeal diseases are the major concerns affecting adolescent health in the mining communities. Poverty, migration, cultural norms and beliefs, commercial sex work and pollution were perceived as the most important pathways of how mining influences adolescent health and well-being. Barriers for good health include poor healthcare-seeking behaviour among adolescents, long distances to health facilities, limitations of the health system’s capacity and lack or inadequate health education. Participants identified various health programmes and interventions at the individual, community and public levels to address the complex challenges faced by adolescents in affected communities.
Conclusion: There is a need to strengthen existing health programmes with a more integrated, community, intersectoral and multisectoral collaboration and target underlying broad determinants of health that are associated with poor health outcomes and are in order to improve and sustainably promote the health and well-being of adolescents in mining areas and benefit current and future generations.
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