Committee member and Balclutha GP Dr Branko Sijnja said it was very easy to overlook the needs of youth.
"We don't see them in primary care very much, but when we do, they present with problems which are reasonably spectacular."
The committee needed to see what was happening with such things as violence, alcohol, and drugs.
In August, the Otago board's hospital advisory committee supported a call from child health clinical leader Dr David Barker for the development of a strategy which he considered necessary to improve services.
It was pointed out after that meeting that there was a report called Strategy J already in existence, which has never been introduced by the board.
Now, planning and funding regional general manager David Chrisp has advised that the strategy has a low priority and is unlikely to be worked on this financial year.
This news was part of a report setting out the 26 projects before his department related to the community and public health committee and suggested priorities for them.
Lack of resources meant there was unlikely to be any work undertaken on the youth strategy, maternity strategy, and diabetes and cardiovascular disease projects in this financial year.
The committee was told that part of the necessity for resetting priorities was that the board had been required to take on national projects such as HPV immunisation and before-school checks.
While these were funded by the Government, the initial work had to be done by health board staff, Mr Chrisp said.
Member Peter Barron said if the issue about not making progress on work which the committee had agreed was important was resources, then it needed to know what allocation was required so it could advise the board.
Dr Sijnja said some of the projects had a top-down approach and asked whether some work such as the child and youth strategy could be handed over to the community health care setting.
Some primary health organisations were already doing projects such as this.
It was agreed that Mr Chrisp would resubmit the priorities plan with more context and detail to the next meeting.