Background: Global and spiritual health are topics of emerging scientific interest. However, both have been examined relating to general health indicators or climate anxiety without paying much attention to its potential impact on physical activity (PA) [1,2]. Research shows that adolescents with stronger expressed spiritual health consistently report higher levels of general health. The evidence on adolescent vigorous PA clearly indicates long- and short-term health effects, as well as sustainable habit-forming properties [2,3].

Objective: We analyzed how global and spiritual health are associated with PA among adolescents.

Methods: Data were collected in December 2021 during the HBSC national pilot survey in Lithuania (n=453, aged 13.96±2.20 years). From the self-report questionnaire, the indicators reflecting PA, global health, spiritual health, demographic, and socioeconomic status were analyzed. The main analysis was conducted using univariate logistic regression method.

Results: Vigorous PA was sufficient among 27.1% girls and 46.4% boys. Among adolescents, spirituality can be considered as a predictor of higher vigorous PA (OR=1.35, 95% CI [1.04-1.76], p=0.023), while global health showed weaker and non-significant association with vigorous PA (OR=1.26, 95% CI [0.97-1.62], p=0.078).

Conclusions: This study reveals that spiritual health is more predictive for vigorous PA than global health. These results add to our knowledge about the relevance of the construct of spiritual health in the PA process. Following this, it might be interesting to further explore possible determinants of spiritual health and vigorous PA interaction among adolescents. A similar but non-significant associations of global health should also be explored in more detail.

Conclusions: Teachers and parental support are major influential factors in preventing risky behaviour of alcohol consumption during crises among adolescence. Our findings can contribute to developing and implementing intervention programs to address the consequences of crises that affect adolescents.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures being implemented to contain it had a large impact on everyday life in the past 2 years. Studies show a negative effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people in general and their mental health in particular (e.g. Rens et al., 2021). However, there is evidence that the impacts of the pandemic on young people are differentiated, with negative aspects (such as boredom or missing friends) as well as positive aspects, such as less stress or more time with the family.

Objective(s): The primary aim of this study is to assess the consistency of the measurement and results of the perceived impact of the COVID-19 prevention measures across countries. In addition, we explore how young people perceived the (potential negative and positive) impacts on different areas of their lives in different countries during the ongoing pandemic.

Method: The HBSC Early Career Group developed an Optional Package to assess exposure to COVID-19 and the impact of prevention measures on young people’s lives. For this study, we analyse data different countries collected on exposure to COVID-19 and the impact of COVID-19 prevention measures on young people’s lives in 2020, 2021 and 2022., At the time of writing, data from a random sample of residents in Luxembourg (n =3768 in 2020 and n = 3709 in 2021) and data from schoolchildren in Ireland (n = 283 in 2022) was already analysed.

Results/Conclusions: Preliminary results show that the proportion of youth in Luxembourg perceiving negative impacts on their life increased from 31% in 2020 to 42% 2021, while the proportion of youth perceiving positive impacts fell from 24% to 12%. Youth from Luxembourg and Ireland were both most likely to perceive negative impacts on their mental health (36% / 29%) and their life (25% / 25%), and most likely to perceive positive impacts on the relationship with their family (62% / 36%). Factor analysis of the perceived impact in different areas and differential item functioning will also be presented for different countries.

The COVID19 pandemic broke out in Israel in March 2020. Like in most infected countries, government impose restrictions that included shutdowns of schools, businesses and community activities, home curfews, social distancing and more. With one wave following the other, the 2-year on-going pandemic period has a significant impact on the lives and well-being of children and youth. Evidence from sales and police data indicated a significant increase in purchase of alcohol and online drugs, suggesting increase of psychoactive substance use in the population.

The latest national school-survey data were from the May-July 2019 HBSC study that was carried out several months prior to the pandemic outbreak. To investigate the impact of the pandemic on the mental and behavioral well-being of youth, we implemented a follow-up national representative survey in May-July 2021, one and a half years into the pandemic period. Data gathering was challenging due to instable school functioning and in some cases zoom-based online administration to sampled classrooms was used.

Data from 2021 were compared to the HBSC data from 2019, to assess the impact of the pandemic.

Finding show (a) a significant decrease in positive life satisfaction (from 41% to 28%), (b) a significant increase in mental distress (from 25% to 40%), (c) a significant decrease in binge drinking (from 14% to 6%) and (d) a significant decrease in drug use (e.g., Cannabis from 11% to 8%).

While the effect of the pandemic on mental well-being was expected, the decline in substance use was indicative that the increase of alcohol and drug purchases reflected increased use by adults, not youth. Alcohol and drug use by adolescents is mainly motivated by, and in context with peer socializing and patterns of night-life. Since all community and entertainment facilities were shutdown, youth were not exposed to recreational social activities that are associated with alcohol and drug use. Currently, our big concern is that post-pandemic might bring a renewed engagement of youth in alcohol and drug related recreational social activities, a change that might result in significant increases in substance use.

The aim of this paper was to explore how social support could work as a protective health asset for young people’s sleep.

The study utilised data collected from two consecutive waves of the Health Behaviour in School Aged Children Study (2014 and 2018) in England, to examine the association between perceived social support and self-reported sleep duration, having difficulties getting to sleep and not getting enough sleep to concentrate.

Three parallel models assessing links between outcome variables and explanatory variables were conducted on a total of 10,068 respondents aged 11,13 and 15. Our findings identified that young people who reported greater perceived social support from their families, teachers and peers, and who felt a higher sense of belonging to their school and community, were more likely to report positive sleep behaviours.

Feelings of support and belonging are likely to create a sense of safety which is beneficial for young people’s ’ sleep.