Healthy youth development: getting our priorities right.

Promotion of healthy youth development is a worldwide priority that cannot be achieved by parents and families alone. Health professionals must use and advocate for evidence-based strategies that enhance key protective factors in the lives of young people. The United Nations' Millennium Development Goals create an unprecedented opportunity to partner with professional and youth-led organisations to ensure young people in the most vulnerable settings benefit from this initiative to reduce extreme poverty and threats to health and wellbeing.