Understanding and preventing poor diet, alcohol use, tobacco smoking and vaping among adolescents from low socioeconomic and remoteness areas through eHealth interventions

Abstract

Chronic diseases disproportionately affect disadvantaged populations, including individuals of low socioeconomic status (SES) and those living in geographically remote (‘regional’, ‘rural’, and ‘remote’) areas. These health inequities are systemic, unjust, and preventable. Adolescence represents a critical period for shaping future health behaviours and outcomes, offering a pivotal opportunity to mitigate the burden of chronic disease and reduce disparities. During this key developmental period, lifestyle risk behaviours such as poor diet, alcohol use, tobacco smoking, and vaping typically emerge. Evidence-based prevention strategies during adolescence are essential to prevent the entrenchment and progression of these lifestyle risk behaviours into adulthood, thereby addressing the widening health equity gap faced by disadvantaged populations.

This thesis aims to address critical gaps in the literature concerning lifestyle risk behaviours among adolescents from low SES and geographically remote contexts, with a primary focus on Australian adolescents. It also contributes to the global evidence base by offering strategies for the development of effective and equitable lifestyle behaviour interventions in both the Australian and international context. Actionable recommendations for policy, public health, and research to support the development of more effective and equitable lifestyle behaviour interventions for disadvantaged youth are outlined in this thesis. These insights have global implications for the design, implementation and scalability of such interventions. Applying these insights has the potential to improve chronic disease outcomes for disadvantaged adolescents on a global scale.