This year’s UK Men’s Health Week is calling on the government to complete their promised Men’s Health Strategy for the NHS.

British male heath outcomes remain unsatisfactory. Surely we can do better than 20% of men dying before their 65th birthday?

What’s the Strategy to Solve This?

Well, part of the 2025 programme is working out exactly what this strategy should look like and focus on. One area to be considered is the concept of “masculinity”

There is an argument that certain attitudes which men are expected to have in order to be masculine, such as “toughing it out” or “pushing through” can be harmful. Why? Well, for one, this can deter men from seeing a professional when they have a health concern. Particularly with conditions that are far better caught early – such as cancer – delays can be fatal.

Men’s mental health is another particular issue. For example, men are lost to suicide at three times the rate of women each year in the UK. In the four years alone from 45-49, one in every thousand men in England, statistically, will take their own life. Is this linked to societal pressures on men which women aren’t exposed to in the same way? Quite possibly. It isn’t surprising then that male mental health has been a focus of past years’ events.

Men’s Health Matters

So, it is important then that a health strategy for men takes into account particular requirements that men may have because of what society expects of them. For the same reason, the NHS needs the promised Women’s Health Strategy. It is clear from key differences in health outcomes between the sexes that health strategies need to be drawn up along those lines.

Men, infamously, aren’t as good at talking about their problems as women. So, if there’s one thing to take away from this, it’d be that it’s really important for men to have better conversations amongst themselves about both physical and mental health.