'Sexist' stance hurts men

A "sexist" attitude towards health funding means men are missing out despite being more likely to suffer heart attacks and cancers than women, Canterbury health-promotion workers say.

A new report, The State of Men's Health in Canterbury 2009, paints a dismal picture of men's health, but says little is being done to improve it.

Men were more likely to have high cholesterol and heart disease and have higher rates of many common cancers than women.

"While men continue to show, on average, poorer health than that of women, there appears to be significantly more health promotion targeted at women," it said.

Young Canterbury men were more likely to be hospitalised with mental-health issues and abuse of substances such as drugs and alcohol.

They were also more likely to die or be injured in an accident.

In the past five years, 1693 Canterbury men aged 15 to 24 were involved in serious-injury crashes compared with 1221 females.

More than 70 per cent of drowning victims are male.

"It would appear that this is due to the `untouchable' or `bulletproof' attitude a lot of young men tend to possess," the report said.

Canterbury Men's Centre manager Donald Pettitt said there had been a strong focus on women's health for the past 20 years, but men had the worst health-related behaviour and worst health outcomes over that time.

"The system has been blind to the outcome for men and unresponsive to the obvious statistics and it's hard not to think of it as sexist when you look at it long enough," Pettitt said.

He put the lack of focus on men's health down to the absence of advocates within the system and because people were naturally more sympathetic to women's health.

"We have been bailing out half of the boat and the bigger holes are on the men's side," he said.

Report co-author and Sport Canterbury events and marketing manager Jonny Kirkpatrick said it was difficult to attract funding for male-focused health projects.

"Men are partly to blame themselves because of the `she'll be right attitude', but it starts at the top," he said.

"The awareness around women's health is fantastic, but men get breast cancer too and as many men die from prostate cancer as women of breast cancer."

The report's main recommendations were raising awareness around men's health and making services gender appropriate.

"The services are there for them, but the pathways for men to access them aren't quite right," Kirkpatrick said.

A Canterbury District Health Board project, Green Prescription, involved GPs referring patients to a supported physical activity programme rather than prescribing medication.

However, males made up only one quarter of participants, meaning the pathways or programme itself were not engaging enough for men, the report said.

Another health board project, Appetite for Life, was a free service offered only to women wanting to make a healthy lifestyle change.

Kirkpatrick said a steering committee was meeting this month to look at what funding could be available for supporting some of the report's recommendations.

"The reality is health was hit pretty hard with budgets this year and men's health isn't high on the radar."

Health Minister Tony Ryall said major men's health issues were covered by significant spending each year, including an estimated $430 million on heart disease; $950m on cancer; just over $1 billion on mental health; and more than $750m on primary care.

- © Fairfax NZ News