Unemployment, Health Status and Public Health Policies: A Paradoxical Configuration for the Catalan Young People in Times of Crisis

This paper relates the perceived health status of young people with specific public health policies. Based on data from the Health Survey in Catalonia, we have created a typology of young people in accordance with their perceived health status, risk behaviour and socio-demographic characteristics. The study also compares survey data from 2006 and 2012 in order to measure how the economic crisis and the austerity policies have affected the health of young people. First, the results show that health promotion policies reach primarily those young people who do not actually need them, while there are groups of young people who fall outside of their scope, and the majority try to avoid making explicit support for such policies. Second, the results point out that the deterioration of working conditions and youth unemployment in Catalonia affect young people’s health while making health promotion policies even more invisible and unreachable for certain groups.