Rethinking 'Strengths' in Youth Health Research.

Joanne Bryant, Megan Blaxland, Chelsea van Deventer, Ayusha Bajracharya, Reuben Bolt, Peter Aggleton

Abstract readEvidence Synthesis

In one paragraph

Article in Sociology of health & illness, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it

0cells of the map it votes in

0citing papers in PubMed

–field-weighted citation impact

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Joanne BryantSchool of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.ORCID 0000-0002-5271-2881

Megan BlaxlandSocial Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Chelsea van DeventerSchool of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Ayusha BajracharyaSchool of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Reuben BoltUniversity of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Peter AggletonSchool of Sociology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.

Funding

Australian Research Council FT220100100

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The language of 'strengths' and 'strengths-based approaches' has rapidly grown in health research, yet rarely have these approaches been evaluated for their conceptual adequacy. This paper presents an analysis of recent literature to examine how young people's 'strengths' have been represented. We found that most papers use the language of resilience and protective factors to focus mostly on individual traits or attributes. This literature offers limited, if any, understanding of how 'strengths' are produced, being concerned instead with describing and classifying individual traits. A smaller group of studies has used concepts of capital to frame strengths in relation to the durability and quality of relationships. Our analysis suggests that this relational understanding of 'strengths' opens up more productive conceptual space for policies and programmes to intervene not with individuals but with social relations: the practices, identities and collective knowledges that produce and sustain young people's positive trajectories.

Indexed as

Adolescent HealthResilience, PsychologicalAdolescentHumansInterpersonal Relationscapitalprotective factorsresiliencesocioecologicalstrengthsyoung people

Identifiers

PMID42046179

DOI10.1111/1467-9566.70189

PMCPMC13121877

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata

LicenceCC BY-NC-ND

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.