Positive health can be boosted among school students. In many parts of the Nordic region schools are implementing health promotion measures that focus on encouraging wellness – in other words, concentrating on things that make students feel good. This report shows how the wellbeing of school students is being enhanced in various school settings in the Nordic region. The importance of a user perspective also emerges.

The report Adolescent Health in the Nordic Region – Health promotion in school settings provides a picture of how the mental health of school students has developed over time and sheds light on the most significant factors for promoting wellbeing, describing the important role that schools play.

The experiences of the activities that the Nordic Welfare Centre describes in this report show that it is possible to improve the work environment for school students and that this need not be complicated. It is about achieving a consensus that it is important to boost students’ wellbeing.

Finland, for example, has a research-based anti-bullying programme called KiVa. The country is also unique in the world in having health studies as a compulsory subject. At a Danish upper secondary school, both students’ mental health and results improved when grades were abandoned for the first year. Read more about this and other inspiring examples in the report.