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Empowering children and adolescents to embrace healthier lifestyles while addressing health inequalities is both urgent and essential. However, current interventions often fall short by focusing narrowly on a single actor – such as parents or teachers – or on isolated behaviors like physical activity. This limited scope overlooks the critical socio-economic and environmental factors that shape health outcomes, reducing their overall effectiveness.
The EU-funded YEAH! project offers an innovative solution to these challenges. By developing a digital, evidence-based, and person-centered intervention, it aims to :
By bridging science, technology, and community engagement, the YEAH! project is paving the way for a healthier, more equitable future for all.
Youth health and well-being have been central priorities of the WHO EU strategy “Investing in Children: 2015–2020.”
While significant progress has been made, critical challenges persist. The prevalence of youth overweight and obesity has tripled in the past 40 years, and 9 million adolescents are now affected by anxiety and depression.
Alarmingly, children and adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds remain the most vulnerable.
The WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health highlights three key strategies to address these pressing issues :
The YEAH! project is fully aligned with these priorities. By enhancing young people’s exposure to health-promoting factors within their psychosocial environments, YEAH! seeks to create lasting, transformative impacts on their health and well-being.
The YEAH! project aims to develop an innovative, person-centered digital intervention that is both personalized and scalable, reaching a large proportion of EU children and adolescents. Its specific objectives are to:
Promote social interactions: train parents, teachers, healthcare professionals, educators, and peers with empowering interpersonal skills to create supportive environments for children and adolescents.
Foster healthier behaviors: Encourage increased physical activity, improved dietary and sleep quality, and reduced sedentary behaviors, particularly screen time.
Combine evidence and co-creation: Tailor interventions to local contexts by integrating scientific evidence with insights from end-users and stakeholders.
Ensure sustainability and equity: Rely on privacy-preserving digital tools and conduct rigorous assessments to optimize cost-effectiveness, equity, and long-term impact in community settings.
The YEAH! project leverages intervention science to develop effective, scalable solutions for promoting healthy lifestyles among children and adolescents. This process follows a multi-step approach to ensure interventions are impactful, equitable, and sustainable:
Understanding the determinants of health behaviors:
By identifying the key factors that influence health behaviors, YEAH! defines strategies to encourage positive, lasting changes.
Evidence-based co-creation:
Intervention prototypes are designed collaboratively with end-users—children, adolescents, parents, and teachers—and stakeholders, ensuring that solutions are grounded in evidence and adapted to real-world needs.
Rigorous evaluation:
Each intervention undergoes comprehensive testing, including randomized controlled trials and case studies, to assess its impact, equity, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness.
Understanding the determinants of health behaviors:
By identifying the key factors that influence health behaviors, YEAH! defines strategies to encourage positive, lasting changes.
Evidence-based co-creation:
Intervention prototypes are designed collaboratively with end-users—children, adolescents, parents, and teachers—and stakeholders, ensuring that solutions are grounded in evidence and adapted to real-world needs.
Rigorous evaluation:
Each intervention undergoes comprehensive testing, including randomized controlled trials and case studies, to assess its impact, equity, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness.
The YEAH! project is built on a multidisciplinary approach, bringing together a top-level consortium with diverse expertise to achieve its objectives:
Parents, teachers, educators and healthcare professionals receive online training from behavior change coaches, empowering them to foster healthy habits in children and adolescents. Additional resources are accessible via a dedicated app and website.
Selected student leaders, known as YEAH! Ambassadors, are trained to inspire and guide their peers in adopting healthier lifestyles through supportive, peer-driven initiatives.
Fun, interactive group activities are designed to educate children and adolescents about healthy habits in an engaging, face-to-face setting.
children and adolescents gain the tools to monitor and manage their physical, social, and mental health, laying the foundation for lifelong healthy habits.
individuals adopt sustainable health behaviors, maintain active and independent lifestyles, and experience a reduced burden of disease.
economic and healthcare costs linked to preventable illnesses decrease, enabling more efficient resource allocation to high-impact areas and reducing health inequalities.
improved health and digital literacy foster public trust, encouraging greater engagement and adherence to effective health strategies.
health policies evolve to become more knowledge-based, people-centered, and responsive to citizens’ needs, addressing inequalities and enhancing overall well-being.
This project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon Europe under grant agreement No 101155977
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Health and Digital Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the European Health and Digital Executive Agency can be held responsible for them.
