Emerging trends in adolescent health promotion.

Social learning theory has had a major impact on the recent development of adolescent health promotion programs. By expanding traditional, knowledge-based curricula to address social, psychological and environmental factors associated with the development of health-related actions, the effectiveness of health education programs can be increased. Rigorous evaluations of these innovative programs provide a research base for the development of a comprehensive health promotion model. This paper describes recent developments in the psychosocial approach to adolescent health behavior. The paper concludes with a proposed definition of health promotion and a comprehensive model of health promotion derived from both theory and research. This review underscores the importance of theory for: contributing to the development of progressively more sophisticated health education programs deriving meaningful conclusions from the evaluation of these programs.