Why men’s health needs a national strategy – with Men’s Health’s Scarlett Wrench - video Dailymotion

Editor of Men’s Health, Scarlett Wrench, shares insights on why men’s health needs urgent national attention.

Transcript

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 and why

01:04men don't always reach out for help it's a chance to rethink how services support men at every stage

01:09of life there have been some quite good programs that have been focused on trying to reach men where

01:14they are so i know there have been a lot of quite successful programs bringing educational materials

01:19into settings like sports settings um also like barbershops as well so i think a lot of it is just

01:26finding different ways to reach people and talk to people um outside of those kind of more obvious

01:33public health messaging channels mental health is a major part of the picture especially with suicide

01:38rates among men under 50 still alarmingly high experts hope the new strategy will bring real focus

01:44to prevention and support i think obviously there's been a huge amount of progress in recent years in

01:50terms of raising awareness around men's mental health um i think there are still lots of demographics

01:55that that messaging hasn't quite reached yet i think that's where sort of certain celebrities talking

02:01more about openly about their mental health has been really beneficial as well because we have been able

02:06to get on some level a lot of those kind of voices in the space that maybe didn't exist before

02:12men's health varies a lot depending on where you live factors like local services lifestyle and

02:19social conditions can all affect how long men live and how healthy they feel understanding these

02:24differences is key to making sure support reaches those who need it most