Detection, Prevention, and Education of Risk Behaviors among Children and Adolescents

Dear Colleagues,

A person’s development from infancy to youth involves significant physical, cognitive, and social changes in which the gradual acquisition of mature behaviors and functions takes place. This process also involves transformations in the nervous system that contribute to the expression of behaviors specific to this developmental process, many of which can be considered risk behaviors.

Risk behaviors are associated with a higher incidence of depression, unintentional injury, violence, drug use, pregnancy, STDs, disability, trauma, and premature death. There is a growing interest in understanding risk behaviors during childhood and adolescence due to increasing rates of mental health problems and preventable deaths globally. Evidence-based knowledge contributes to developing detection, prevention, and education strategies to tackle the adverse consequences of risk behaviors.

For this Special Issue, we call for manuscripts addressing topics related to detection, prevention, and education for children and adolescents’ risk behaviors. Original articles and reviews on the identification of risk and protective factors; correlates associated with them; successful prevention and education strategies in this population; the evaluation of risk behaviors; as well as the risk perception, knowledge, and attitudes of children and adolescents towards risk behaviors will be welcome. Papers addressing mental health services design and implementation aimed at the prevention and care of risk behaviors will also be welcome.

This Special Issue aims to provide an updated view of risk behaviors in children and adolescents, with a particular interest in new and emerging topics and prevention and educational efforts to promote healthy growth.

We are especially interested in publishing manuscripts from researchers in the Americas, Africa, and other emerging countries, but we welcome manuscripts from all over the world.

Dr. Pamela Garbus
Dr. Fernando A. Wagner
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.