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While adolescence is a time of tremendous growth ann potential, it is also a time of considerable risks during which social contexts exert powerful influences. Many adolescents face pressure to use drugs and intitiate sexual relationships putting themselves at high risk for intentional and unintentional injuries, unintended pregnancies, and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Many also experience a wide range of adjustment and mental health problems. Behavior pattems that are established during this period such as the use or avoidance of drugs and taking or abstaining from sexual risk can have long-lasting negative and positive effects on future health and well-being. As a result, adults have unique opprtunities to influence adolescents.

Adolescents are different both from young children and adults. Specifically, adolescents are not fully capable of understanding compelx concepts, or the relationship between behavior and consequences, or the degree of control they have or can have over health decision-making, including that related to sexual behavior. This inability may make them particularly vunerable to sexual exploitation and high-rish behaviors, Laws, customs, and practices may also affect adolescents differently than adults. For example, laws and policies ofthen restrict adolescents; access to reproductive health infromation and services, especially when the are unmarried. In addition, even when services do exist, provider attitudes about adolescents often pose a significant barrier to the use of those services.

Adolescents depend on thelr families, their communities, schools, health services and their workplaces to learn a wide range of skills that cna help hem to cope with the pressures they face and make a successful transition from childhood to adulthood. Parents, members of the community, service providers, and social Institutions have the responsibility to both promote adolescent development and adjustment and to intervene effectively when problems arise.