From Financial Constraints and Parental Dismissal to Delayed Health-Seeking Behavior Among Adolescents (15 - 19) in Tashkent

ABSTRACTHealth issues experienced by teenagers remain poorly documented and require deeper investigation. Modern adolescents will define the region's future development, so ensuring their stable mental and physical health is not only a public health concern but a long-term societal investment. However, teenagers' health issues tend to be underestimated in the presence of other household priorities, resulting in the development of delayed health-seeking behavior. A UNICEF (2022) study supports this pattern with national evidence showing that Uzbek adolescents face high treatment costs and challenges of combining work and study that often outweigh routine medical care. Despite the huge investments in healthcare, constantly rising costs compounded by parental dismissal play an additional role in shaping teenagers’ attitudes towards medical care in their current and later stages of life. To address this gap and the lack of research in this area in Tashkent, this study was conducted. The research collected quantitative data from 22 doctors and 37 teenagers to compare perspectives on delayed health-seeking behavior among adolescents in Tashkent. During the surveys, the emphasis was on doctors who primarily work with teenagers. However, to get a more complete picture of this behavioral pattern, doctors of varied specializations were surveyed as well. The findings suggest that most families feel financial pressure, with some even cutting other expenses. This may considerably influence how families rank medical care: most families placed it as a medium or low priority. This behavior, combined with nearly a third of parents delaying visits to the doctor while their children were growing up, suggests that teenagers may have unconsciously inherited a similar mindset, as can be seen in teenagers’ responses to the question of intergenerational transmission. The study also examined secondary factors that may directly shape how teenagers respond to worsening health conditions. KEYWORDS:parental dismissal, delayed health-seeking behavior, financial constraints, rising costs, teenagers, Tashkent, Uzbekistan