A needs assessment involves a systematic national review of the health and well-being status of adolescents. 

What type of data should be analyzed during a needs assessment?

It is critical that the needs assessment consider data across all key areas of adolescent health and well-being, not limiting analysis to certain health areas (such as SRH or nutrition) where there might be more data.  

Specifically, the needs assessment should examine:  

  • the main health and well-being issues and challenges affecting adolescents;  
  • the adolescent behaviours most closely linked to these health and well-being challenges; 
  • adolescent behaviours that could lead to health and well-being problems (for example, risk factors such as tobacco consumption, alcohol and drug use, physical inactivity and poor nutrition); 
  • levels of harmful practices affecting adolescents (such as child marriage and FGM); 
  • the sociocultural context of adolescents’ lives, including protective and risk factors at various ecological levels (for example, environmental exposures) and in different institutions (for example, schools, health services and employers) that can influence the above issues; 
  • the influence of gender norms, roles and relations on the health and well-being of both girls and boys during adolescence; 
  • subgroups of adolescents who may be in the greatest need of services and programmes; and 
  • stakeholders and data sources that can provide more information on gaps and that need to be accessed to complete the needs assessment. 

What are the data sources for a needs assessment?

Methods and data sources for a needs assessment

  • Desk review of data sources – for example, the health information management system, including data from facility-based registry systems, summary reports from individual patient record systems, community-level record systems and health facility assessments; Global Health Observatory data; and data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), the Global School-Based Student Health Survey, the World Mental Health Survey Initiative and the Global Youth Tobacco Survey; national disease surveillance records; national vital statistics; educational records; reports from key ministries serving adolescents; reports from research studies and research findings from projects working with vulnerable groups or in fragile settings;
  • desk review of national, regional and global estimates from, for example, Global Health Estimates, the Global Burden of Disease study (440, 441) or global status reports (275). Estimates are especially useful in countries where civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems are weak and required data are not readily available; the WHO resource bank on adolescent health and well-being includes a database and resources for statistics across key health areas (442) that can be used to extrapolate data in the absence of reliable national data;
  • desk review of research such as national and subnational studies, peer-reviewed articles and other country assessments;
  • desk review of policy documents (such as data from project evaluations); 
  • interviews with key stakeholders from the health sector and other sectors and UN agencies (UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO, UN Women);
  • focus group discussions with adolescents and youth.
  • Ideally, data are presented disaggregated by age group (10–14 years and 15–19 years) and sex, as well as by geographic location, to facilitate comparisons.