eBulletin
9 May 2019
Vol 5 No 5
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GAMH SELF-CARE REPORT PUBLISHED
Who Self-Cares Wins: A global perspective on men and self-care, GAMH's latest report, was published in April.
The report has been well-received. Comments made so far include:
‘Many congratulations to Global Action on Men’s Health for their report on men and self-care. I’m really impressed by its breadth and depth. It’s a great compilation of the evidence around men’s attitudes and practices, as well as practical advice’ – Sarah Hawkes, Professor of Global Public Health and Director, UCL Centre for Gender and Global Health and Co-Director, Global Health 50/50.
'This is an effective report: clearly written, well researched and comprehensive. A tailored and specific self-care agenda recognising the needs of men is called for and this report sets out an achievable series of steps for policy makers. In doing so, the report points the way to a more tailored discussion of self-care, seen through the prism of gender' – Dr Stephen Mann, Editor, Self-Care Journal.
'This report is a very welcome synthesis and summary of the key issues relating to men and self-care. This report, the first to look broadly and systematically at men and self-care, expands our understanding of the importance of gender. A focus on men’s self-care and health should be an important and explicit consideration going forwards' – Dr David Webber, President, International Self-Care Foundation.
Blogs on the report have been published by International Health Policies, the UK Self Care Forum and the UCL Centre for Gender and Global Health. A paper based on the report will also be published in the May/June issue of Trends in Urology and Men's Health.
GAMH will be promoting the report further during and after Men's Health Week in June. Activities will include sharing the report with international health organisations working on relevant health issues and discussing how its findings can be incorporated into their policy work.
GAMH members are asked to disseminate the report as widely as possible and to make use of its findings and arguments in their own research and advocacy work.
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INTERNATIONAL MEN'S HEALTH WEEK 2019
Men’s Health Week 2019 starts on 10 June and is 25 years old this year!
The Week provides an opportunity for a wide range of organizations and individuals to draw attention to the poor state of men’s health, organize activities that engage men, and advocate changes to health policy and practice. In short, it puts men’s health on the map both nationally and globally.
During Men’s Health Week, GAMH will be raising global men’s health issues via social media, blogs and articles. There will a particular focus on men and self-care, using the findings of our recent report, Who Self-Care Wins.
We will also be sharing information about the Men’s Health Week activities of our member organisations and supporting their work through the provision of data, information and messages of support.
The latest information we have on our members’ plans is on our website here. Please keep GAMH informed about your plans so we can update and expand this.
Thanks to our colleagues at the Canadian Men's Health Foundation, we now have a GAMH Men's Health Week logo (click on the logos to download):
Please use these logos in your Men's Health Week publicity to show that this is an international event. You can also link the logos to the Men's Health Week page of the GAMH website. And use #menshealthweek in all social media work.
GAMH members were invited to a meeting in April to discuss Men's Health Week. The notes of the meeting are here. |
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MORE GAMH NEWS
Governance
GAMH's application to the UK charity regulator (the Charity Commission) is on the verge of approval. After a lengthy review process, we have been asked to make some small changes to the wording of the draft constitution in order to clarify the organisation's objects in a way that makes them acceptable to the Commission. These changes have now been agreed by the Executive Committee but also need to be approved by GAMH's members at a special general meeting. This will take place at 21.00 UK time on 13 May. Details have been circulated to all GAMH members. The new draft constitution can be viewed here. The changes are shown on page 1, clause 3.
WHO Europe men's health strategy
GAMH will be hosting a webinar for NGOs working in Europe to discuss how they can use the WHO strategy as an advocacy tool. This will probably take place in September/October. Our European members will be meeting on 10 May to discuss the plans for the webinar. More information will be shared as soon as it is available.
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OTHER NEWS
AUSTRALIA'S NEW MEN'S strategy was published in April. The National Men’s Health Strategy 2020-2030 is a framework for action to work towards the goal that 'Every man and boy in Australia is supported to live a long, fulfilling and healthy life.' The Strategy includes commitments to:
- Empower and support men and boys to optimise their own and each other’s health and wellbeing.
- Build the evidence base for improving men’s health.
- Strengthen the capacity of the health system to provide quality appropriate care for men and boys.
Five priority health issues form the basis of the Strategy:
- Mental health.
- Chronic conditions.
- Sexual and reproductive health and conditions where men are over-represented.
- Injuries and risk taking.
- Healthy ageing.
A NEW WHO report, World Health Statistics 2019, uses a sex and gender lens to analyse recent global health data. Among the findings:
- Based on recent mortality risks boys will live, on average, 69.8 years and girls 74.2 years – a difference of 4.4 years. Life expectancy at age 60 years is also greater for women than men: 21.9 versus 19.0 years.
- Of the 40 leading causes of death globally, 33 contribute to a lower life expectancy in males than in females.
- Alcohol consumption per capita globally is four times higher in men than women.
- Tobacco smoking rates are five times higher in men than women globally.
- Death rates from road injury are twice as high in men as women and mortality rates are four times higher in men globally.
- The probability of a man aged 30 dying from a non-communicable disease before 70 is 1.44 times higher than for a woman aged 30.
The report concludes: 'Health planning needs to allow for the different needs of men and women, including exposure to risk factors, barriers to access and health outcomes. In many circumstances, men experience poorer health outcomes than women do. Although some of these poorer health outcomes may have a biological basis, they may be amplified by gender roles. Gender analysis and health policies should consider women, men and gender-diverse population groups, to ensure equitable health outcomes. It is also necessary to formulate gender-responsive human-resource policies and regulations, ensure equal pay for work of equal value, and address barriers faced by women in progressing to leadership roles.'
WHO'S WELCOME NEW interest in men's health is also highlighted in a recent Lancet comment piece on gender mainstreaming. The lead author was Dr Veronica Magar, head of WHO's Gender, Equity and Human Rights team, a group recently re-located to the Director-General's office. Noting that 'gender mainstreaming has been critiqued because of an exclusive focus on women that overlooks the role of men', the paper states that WHO is 'mainstreaming gender as a relational concept that includes everyone and intersects with other drivers of inequalities, such as poverty, age, sexuality, ethnicity, and disability, resulting in differential behaviours, exposures to risk factors, vulnerabilities, and health outcomes. ...
'WHO's integrated approach to mainstreaming gender, together with equity and human rights, facilitates identifying the impact of power relations and gender norms on people's health and wellbeing across the gender spectrum and throughout the life course. Hegemonic masculinities can result in a delay in seeking health care among men, despite persistent symptoms of ill health, ... Furthermore, hegemonic masculinities can encourage men to engage in health-harming behaviours, including the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other substances, that negatively affect not only the health and wellbeing of men but also women.'
PROMUNDO HAS COSTED the impact of harmful gender norms. The Cost of the Man Box: A study on the economic impacts of harmful masculine stereotypes in the US, UK, and Mexico, suggests that 'man up' stereotypes – and the harmful behaviours they lead to – cost the United States, the United Kingdom, and Mexico at least USD 21 billion a year. The behaviours analysed include: traffic accidents, suicide, depression, sexual violence, bullying and violence, and binge drinking. The study draws on available public health data to estimate the total nationwide prevalence of each of these six outcomes or consequences, and then uses a range of methodologies to approximate the associated costs.
THE GENCAD STUDY report has finally been published (even though it was completed in 2017). GenCAD was a European pilot which aimed to improve the understanding of gender in addressing chronic diseases, using coronary artery disease (CAD) as an example to highlight differences in treatment and prevention. One key finding was that while there is a growing body of recommendations from leading health organisations supporting more gender-sensitive and gender-aware health care, translation of these recommendations into policies is still lacking and should be achieved as a next step. The report also recommends the development of more campaigns to inform citizens on the relevance of CAD for their quality of life, not only on mortality, that target women and men specifically and use electronic media and television to reach patients and general public.
MEDICAL EMERGENCY DISEASES (EMDs) are much more likely to affect men than women, according to a new global study published in BMJ Global Health. EMDs are defined as those where interventions within minutes to hours are required to improve health outcomes. 31 conditions were studied. In 2015, these resulted in 28.3 million deaths globally, 51% of mortality and 42% of all burden of diseases. The paper states: 'Across all income groups, males made up a larger percentage of EDB, likely driven by injuries. Various biopsychosocial explanations can be put forward for the gender differences in diseases burden. Factors such as social support, gender identity, self-esteem, education, exposure to diseases, work responsibilities and many others contribute to the gender differences in morbidity.'
This chart shows Years of Life lost (YLL) by sex and World Bank income group globally as a result of EMDs in 2015:
SAVE THE DATE: The next Men's Health World Congress will be in Malaysia, 9-11 July 2020. The organisers are committed to a broad-based agenda (a draft programme has already been published) and have begun a discussion with GAMH about collaboration to ensure the event achieves its goals.
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MEN'S HEALTH EQUITY: A HANDBOOK
Edited by Derek M. Griffith, Vanderbilt University, USA,
Marino A. Bruce, Vanderbilt University, USA and
Roland J. Thorpe, Jr., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA
Behavioural, social, and policy interventions to improve the health of the overall population have been less successful in reaching or improving the outcomes of men when compared with women. The field of men’s health equity explores how and why inequalities among men exist and presents evidence informing efforts to improve the health of men and reduce inequalities among them. Scholars in this field seek to use a critical lens to systematically explore the root causes of patterns of illness and disease, the specific needs of groups of men, and what can be done to improve men’s health and well-being.
Published May 2019: 7 x 10: 624pp
Hb: 978-1-138-05296-3
Pb: 978-1-138-05297-0
eBook: 978-1-315-16742-8
20% discount with code BSE19*
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Global Action on Men's Health
c/o Men's Health Forum
32-36 Loman Street
London SE1 0EH
United Kingdom
www.gamh.org
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