The Health Foundation - Who would want to be 20 in 2020?

On the 1 January 2000, a news item on the BBC website described the battle to be Britain’s first baby of the new millennium. Twenty years on, some might wonder who would want to be 20 in 2020? 

The coronavirus pandemic has dealt multiple and varied blows to people across the UK in terms of their health and wellbeing as well as their livelihoods. For young people the experience has, in the main, been one of self-sacrifice. While they have been largely unaffected by the virus itself, the impact of the containment measures has been – and is likely to continue to be – severe.

The Health Foundation’s Young people’s future health inquiry showed that between the ages of 12–24, young people need to accumulate four assets in order to make a smooth transition to adult life: appropriate skills and education, emotional support, social connections, and a financial and practical safety net. These assets were all found to be associated with starting adult life with ‘a home, a job and a friend’ – what many describe as the basis for good health.