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Public Health Research and Practice Public Health Research and Practice Society
The peer-reviewed journal of the Sax Institute
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Co-creating health interventions for adolescents: strategies for meaningful involvement

Matthew L. Watt A # , Florens de Groot A # , Sarah Y. Ford A , Angela Webster C D E and Louise Thornton A B *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

B School of Medicine and Public Health, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia.

C Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

D NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

E Westmead Applied Research Centre, Westmead Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

* Correspondence to: louise.thornton@sydney.edu.au

Public Health Research and Practice 35, PU24015 https://doi.org/10.1071/PU24015
Submitted: 9 April 2024  Accepted: 13 February 2025  Published: 18 September 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Sax Institute. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Keywords: adolescent health, co-creation, co-design, digital health, multiple health behaviour change, social media, text-messages, youth engagement.

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