Teenagers. They grow up fast—pretty soon they're starting to drive, applying for college, and, according to a recent study, not getting the preventative care they need. And if we're serious about a health care system that promotes wellness, prevention and a long-term effort to bring down rising rates of chronic disease, the teen years are a good place to start.(Not to mention that it might help their parents' blood pressure.)

Using data from the Medical Expenditure Survey, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco determined that only 38 percent of adolescents age 10 to 17 had a preventative health care visit in the past year. UCSF researchers also found that most teens weren't getting counseled on important health issues such as dental care, healthy diet, regular exercise, wearing a seat belt or bicycle helmet, and the dangers of secondhand smoke. Only 10 percent of teens discussed all of these issues with their doctor, and less than half discussed any of these issues with their doctor.

Family income and insurance status had an effect on preventative care delivery. Kids from higher income households, and those with private insurance, were more likely to get preventative care than those from lower income households who were publicly insured or uninsured.

"The results were pretty shocking to us," Charles Irwin, MD, the study's first author and director of the Division of Adolescent Medicine at UCSF Children's Hospital said. "With so many adolescents not receiving the recommended preventive care, it is clear we need to develop new strategies that will help increase the delivery of services."

As we have seen in innovative health initiatives in the workplace, investing money in employee wellness does lead to increased productivity and savings. This principle also holds true for communities; Somerville, Massachusetts found positive outcomes for school children who took part in a community-wide initiative to encourage exercise and healthy eating.

Unhealthy habits, such as poor diet , smoking and lack of exercise, can contribute to chronic disease, one of the most costly aspects of our current health care delivery system. And the conditions for those diseases can be created at a young age. Children are an especially vulnerable population when it comes to learning unhealthy habits. But that requires communication between doctor and patient—plus enough primary care doctors to treat all these teens, and a payment system that rewards communication and wellness better than our specialist-tilted payment system does today. The national economic stimulus plan took some steps toward emphasizing wellness; a comprehensive reform of our health care system can lead us further down that path.