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Published on November 26, 2025

On October 22, 2025, Benedict Weobong, Dahdaleh faculty fellow and Global Mental Health epidemiologist and academic, presented his and his team’s research on reaching adolescents with health services, specifically in select communities in a secondary city in Ghana.

Benedict began by recognizing his team from Ghana and WHO. He also recognized the funding organization, Botnar Foundation.

Benedict and his team’s research seek to address the challenge that adolescents pass through adolescence without any preventive or promotive contacts without a health worker, which represents missed opportunity for early detection of health problems and overall health promotion.

Guiding Benedict’s research was the question; Would health check-ups during adolescence be effective and cost-effective to improve adolescent health and wellbeing? The research took place in five communities across the city of Cape Coast, with specific schools selected from each community.

A bottom-up approach was taken by Benedict and his team with several stages. The first step consisted of co-production workshops, between adolescents and parents. The second co-production workshops included the discussion of health and education. The final validation workshop consisted of presenting results from previous workshops, alongside validating the intervention architecture. Lastly, national level meetings were conducted between health and education stakeholders in Ghana.

The results consisted of a list of thirty-three health conditions that are consistent with the research performed. Then, the screening process, which consisted of Y-Check stations, began. This included screening, physical assessment, clinical review/treatment and referrals (with the assistance of a Y-Check counsellor).

The health check-ups picked up a number of conditions that would otherwise not have been detected – these were particularly high for psychosocial issues (including mental health), Epilepsy, STI symptoms, and Anaemia.

To conclude, Benedict addressed further steps for his and his team’s research, including rethinking an approach appropriate for a community setting, and emphasizing the importance of a multisectoral approach, specifically in between the health and education teams.

Connect with Benedict Weobong

Watch the full seminar:

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