As Austria outlines the health issues it will prioritise during its presidency of the EU, John Bowis, a member of the EMHF's board of directors and the Member of the European Parliament for London issues a plea not to neglect men’s health issues.
Gender mainstreaming is one of those buzz-words, or buzz-phrases, that is all the rage among European policy makers and most of them have not the faintest idea of what it means.
Gender issues in Health are often assumed to be Women's issues and so the Gender agenda is taken over by the Women's agenda. As we move into the Austrian Presidency of the EU, we shall be in a six-month period when women's health is indeed on the agenda - Austria has signalled its priorities as Women's heart disease, osteoporosis and endometriosis, as well as diabetes. All that is very welcome so long as the important priorities for men's health are not neglected.
Indeed if Gender is really to be addressed, then often the needed emphasis is on men's health. Men are notoriously bad about seeking medical advice and even worse than notoriously bad about seeking and adopting a personal policy of health promotion. Men die younger than women, although women hence have more later years with disability and frailty. A greater understanding by governments of, and investment in, good health would cut the cost of years lost both by mortality and by disability in both senses. The benefit to governments would be more active earning years, contributing to the tax coffers and lower demands on benefit systems.
A change in men's attitudes to their health would be good for men and good for governments - that perhaps is a statement of the blindingly obvious. But it would also help men to cope when they are at their most vulnerable. One of my political priorities has been to campaign against and defeat stigma. Stigma is nearly always based more on ignorance than malice, but it is always a cruel and unnecessary added burden to the person living with a disease or disorder. We see it in mental illness; we see it in epilepsy; we see it in diabetes; we see it in incontinence. We also see it when men contract diseases that are assumed by society to be women's diseases.
A man may cope with testicular or bowel cancer, even if they are not easy to talk about. He will find it much more difficult, if not intolerable, to cope with breast cancer. Men have been led to despair, shame and suicide because of their own emotions over having a "women's disease" and being totally unable to confide in family and friends. To a lesser extent coming to terms with a man having osteoporosis is traumatic. The stigma may be as much self-generated as imposed by others but society does little to support and sustain a man in such circumstances.
So the Vienna Declaration on Men's Health is timely and welcome. I was very happy to sign this in the Austrian Capital and to make it clear that Austria and Europe as a whole have an opportunity and a duty to press for Gender, male and female, to have its place in the planning of healthcare and health services for the future.
- John Bowis was recently voted MEP of the Year for health by his peers in the European Parliament. His website is at www.johnbowis.com. Link directly to his men's health page here.
- Read the EMHF press release on this editorial here.
