Improving Men's Health: A New Report

“Men’s Health” is a powerful way to look at healthcare that has become increasingly important in healthcare planning over the last 10 years. The men’s health perspective focuses on understanding men’s unique health needs, delivering services that are appropriate and accessible to men, and evaluating new strategies for improving men’s health. In order to show how this perspective can change the way we look at healthcare in British Columbia, the Men’s Health Initiative of B.C., in partnership with the SFU Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health & Addiction, has completed a report entitled A Roadmap to Men’s Health:  Current Status, Research, Policy & Practice. This report clearly explains the men’s health perspective and applies it to health conditions especially relevant to men. Here are some of the key findings from this report:

1. It is widely known that men everywhere have a life expectancy well below that of women (in British Columbia, a man’s life expectancy is about four years less than a woman’s). What is less known are the causes of death most responsible for the difference in life expectancy between men and women:
   • Heart Disease, which strikes men on average 10 years before it affects women;
   • Suicide, an act that is three times more common in men, often occurring in relatively young age groups; and
   • Motor Vehicle Accidents, which are more frequent and much more likely to be fatal for men than for women.
   Although other causes of death differ between men and women, these are the Big Three sources of “years of life lost” by men compared to women. It must be kept in mind that each of these sources of mortality represents an opportunity for improving men’s health, and hopefully extending lifespan, by developing strategies to reduce deaths from these life-threatening problems, allocating healthcare funding and setting policy so as to better manage them, and developing innovative forms of clinical care that improve outcomes for these sources of mortality.
2. These sources of mortality are strongly affected by aspects of masculine identity that contribute to gender differences in the occurrence and outcome of health conditions. Socially-defined aspects of masculinity include acceptance of physical risks (leading to increased reckless driving and motor vehicle accident fatalities), reluctance to seek support from others for emotional suffering (leading to increased alcohol dependence and depression, as well as increased suicide rates) and resistance to preventive healthcare behaviours such as improved nutrition (leading to more cardiovascular disease and its associated mortality). Traditional masculinity may indeed be hazardous to one’s health! At the same time, we must not portray masculinity as a “problem” to be overcome in the name of good health. Instead, we must recognize that a masculine quality like risk-taking is a double-edged sword: positive for the individual and society when it involves accepting risks of necessary but dangerous jobs such as military service, but negative for the individual and society when it involves taking pointless risks like fast and reckless driving.

These and many other areas of men’s health are discussed in A Roadmap to Men’s Health: Current Status, Research, Policy & Practice, along with recommendations for filling in knowledge gaps and enhancing the kinds of healthcare services we provide to men. The aim is to engage men more fully in the healthcare system, respond to their needs more appropriately, and someday achieve equality of life expectancy between men and women.

A Review of Men's Health Issues in BC with Dr. Dan Bilsker - Part 1

A Review of Men's Health Issues in BC with Dr. Dan Bilsker - Part 2

A Review of Men's Health Issues in BC with Dr. Dan Bilsker - Part 3