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17th September 2024 Latest News Men's Health Western Australia

The importance of investing in men’s health

Andrew web

By Dana Wallace Campbell, General Manager WA, The Hospital Research Foundation Group.

There are plenty of conversations being had about the state of men’s health, both here in WA and at a national and global level, yet the fact remains that the majority of men remain reluctant to put their hand up and ask for help, whether there are services available to them or not.

There also remains a distinct lack of men’s specific health services and cohesion in terms of bringing key groups together to achieve better physical and mental health outcomes for men. Intellectually we know this must be done together, yet practice shows we still silo mental and physical care, and vice versa.

The fact remains that the statistics regarding men’s health, wellbeing and longevity are startling and are getting worse. What is actually stopping us from addressing the underlying issues, acknowledging the individual, familial, social and economic effects, and applying meaningful responses across education, policy and practice?

While we see incremental improvements year on year, overwhelmingly data demonstrates that most men remain reluctant to talk about their emotions and that means that in general, they don’t proactively seek help, or perhaps lack the inherent skills and tools to do so. Skills that seem to come more easily to women perhaps through socialisation and gender roles.

While this may be changing at a small increment with the younger cohort of males, men continue to die younger from preventable disease, drink more, take more risks and suffer more from isolation, loneliness, and persistent depression.

Australian men, on average, have a shorter life expectancy than women, and die more often than women from preventable causes, prompting the need not just for more specialised care, but an enhanced individual and societal value system that supports their life and lifestyle equilibrium.

The Hospital Research Foundation Group is committed to improving men’s health, recognising the significant importance of a whole of community health agenda. We are committed to raising awareness about preventive screenings and regular healthcare for men of all ages – including their physical health, mental health, and social connection. We are proud to have invested $1.4 million into men’s health in recent initiatives and we know there is more we can, and will, do.

However more needs to be done at a policy level to achieve real change.

The WA State Government’s Men’s Health and Wellbeing Policy, which was launched in 2019 by then Health Minister Roger Cook, was for the most part a good one and the Government should be applauded for it.

However, it remains the only State policy in Australia that addresses men’s health and after five years, has still yet to be converted from policy to practice.

There is also a disproportionately low rate of government-funding dedicated to men’s health research.

In 2023, the National Health and Medical Research Centre awarded $155.8 million in research funding for women’s and maternal health. In the same year, men’s health received just $15.3 million.

The 2019 report card for men’s heath in WA clearly stated that one of our major barriers was that there was simply not enough evidenced-based research to address the inequities of health for men and boys.

The sheer economic burden of men’s health issues, according to recently released Movember findings, reveal that preventable diseases in men cost the health system a staggering $10.7 billion in indirect costs in 2023 alone.

The range of poor health outcomes in men include growing rates of obesity, diabetes, cancer, substance abuse and increasing rates of mental distress, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men disproportionally affected.

The statistics for men on a global level are sadly no better. There is currently not a single country where men outlive women.

This is in spite of access to health and socio-economic factors. In fact there was a greater average disparity in high income countries.

It is critically important now, more than ever, to recognise and acknowledge the effect men’s health has on the dynamics of families and communities. An ecosystem that is designed to enhance and sustain the health and wellbeing of WA’s men and boys, coupled with improved health and interpersonal literacy, presents one of the greatest opportunities to lead the country and world in this space.

Since early 2020, we have actively engaged across the health, research and community services sector to better understand the gaps, the needs and the priorities. What we seek is a meaningful and united commitment to funding research that helps us understand why men are less likely to seek support for their physical and mental health and how to engage them more regularly, and more meaningfully, with services to make sure they can live a life without the burden of poor health.

We need to make sure credentialled and endorsed information and resources are available to men and their families across the entire spectrum of physical and mental health and to make sure research findings are translated to better programs of care and policies that are specifically designed to respond to the unique needs of men, and our boys are evolving in an ecosystem that helps them value and prioritise their health and wellbeing, for themselves and others

*This article was originally published in The West Australian Newspaper on 5 September 2024.

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