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A new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Carolina Population Center reveals people, unlike wine, do not get better with age.

Researchers analyzed surveys from 14,000 young people and found diet, activity level, body weight, health-care access, substance use and reproductive health worsen with age despite ethnicity or nationality. In fact, only self-perceptions of personal health and exposure to violence improved with age.

Kathleen Mullan Harris, Ph.D., professor of sociology at UNC and author of the study, says, "This is the first longitudinal study to track the developmental trends in health disparities among a national cohort of young people with new findings showing a general decline in health during the transition to adulthood."

Co-author, Penny Gordon-Larsen, Ph.D., says, "We need a major investment in preventive health efforts for this age group, especially in those areas that our study found were important, such as greater access to health insurance, healthy food options, exercise facilities and reduced exposure to substances of abuse."

Researchers say the study shows great variability between racial and ethnic disparity, meaning there is not one solution. Dr. Harris believes, "Instead, solutions must be sensitive to the different patterns of health risk that emerge across population groups as adolescents enter young adulthood."

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 2006;160:74-81

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