Editor of Men’s Health, Scarlett Wrench, shares insights on why men’s health needs urgent national attention.
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00:00now the government has launched its first ever men's health strategy asking men across the
00:06country to share their views on how to close the life expectancy gap we spoke to men's health
00:12editor scarlet wrench about what this could mean in real life and what men's health really needs
00:17right now we know that men are disproportionately affected by a lot of health conditions
00:22whether that's cancer type 2 diabetes heart disease obviously more likely to take their
00:29own lives than women um i think there are lots of reasons why men find this quite a difficult topic
00:34often um so we know that men are in touch with their gp slightly less frequently than women as well
00:40and are more likely to delay seeking help until symptoms are perhaps a little more severe
00:46and there have been some studies that have shown that a kind of a pressure to tough it out and a
00:53sense that they should be trying to find ways to creatively solve their own problems this new men's
00:58health strategy aims to tackle some tough challenges from physical illness to mental health
01:03and why men don't always reach out for help it's a chance to rethink how services support men
01:08at every stage of life there have been some quite good programs that have been focused on trying to
01:13reach men where they are so i know there have been a lot of quite successful programs bringing
01:18educational materials into settings like sports settings um also like barbershops as well so i think
01:25a lot of it is just finding different ways to reach people and talk to people um outside of those
01:32kind of more obvious public health messaging channels mental health is a major part of the picture
01:37especially with suicide rates among men under 50 still alarmingly high experts hope the new strategy
01:43will bring real focus to prevention and support i think obviously there's been a huge amount of
01:48progress in recent years in terms of raising awareness around men's mental health um i think
01:54there are still lots of demographics that that messaging hasn't quite reached yet i think that's
01:59where sort of certain celebrities talking more about openly about their mental health has been really
02:04beneficial as well because we have been able to get on some level a lot of those kind of voices
02:09in the space that maybe didn't exist before men's health varies a lot depending on where you live
02:16factors like local services lifestyle and social conditions can all affect how long men live and how
02:22healthy they feel understanding these differences is key to making sure support reaches those who need it most