Men’s health focus in Journal of Primary Health Care
The December 2009 issue of Journal of Primary Health Care (JPHC), which is edited by my wife Felicity Goodyear-Smith, has a men’s health focus.
In the editorial she writes:
The health of our men contributes greatly to the health of our nation. Overall men have a poorer health status than women and use our health services less frequently. They die earlier than women and more of their deaths are avoidable.
A guest editorial by Lannes Johnson explains why encouraging men’s awareness of, and attention to, health issues is vital for our society as a whole. He notes:
Men’s shorter lives have not been shown to be due to biological differences and behavioural differences may account for some disparities (e.g. accidents, suicides, cancer and deaths from cardiovascular disease), but certainly in NZ we do spend a lot more on women’s health. The role of this differential allocation of health budget has not been fully investigated.
Other papers discuss how men’s life expectancy can be improved, and one doctor reports on “Well Men” checks.
Particularly interesting is a debate between two doctors with the moot: “New Zealand should introduce population screening for prostate cancer using PSA testing”.
Finally, there is a review of the book ‘Healthy Bastards’ by Dave Baldwin.
You can download the December 2009 JPHC articles (or the complete journal) as PDFs from the Journal of Primary Health Care Archive.
