Men's Health - What you should Know

Family Circle  May 2000 well-being

Reporter:    Leta Keens

Men are different from women – there are no surprises there.  You can probably come up with dozens of ways the men in your life think and act differently from you (that's why we love them…and why they drive us mad as well), but one thing is absolutely clear they're not as healthy as women are.

It's easy to dismiss all this as just one of those unfortunate factors of life, but the experts agree that the major reasons men don't do as well as women in the health stakes is because they don't look after themselves as well, they're not as good at going to the doctor and are much better than women at ignoring symptoms.

It is this unwillingness to look after their health that prompted Bernard Denner to set up the Centre for Advancement of Men's Health (CAMH), a collaboration between the Men's Awareness Network and Hepburn Health Service in Victoria.  A major program of CAMH, which has recently released the Men's Health Report 2000, is to go around the country talking to men, either in the community or the workplace (female employees can come along, too, in the workplace sessions), about health issues and working in affiliation with organisations such as the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia to help get the message across.

It's not that men are not interested in their health, says Bernard – figures show that in the past four years more than 8500 men have attended CAMH health nights around the county – but "it's how you give them the opportunity to talk about it; it has to be bloke friendly, something they can relate to."

At a typical two-hour CAMH health night or session in the workplace, as well as information on men's major health problems, there is also practical advice on visiting the GP, including such basic things as reminding men to take their Medicare card with them and suggesting they ring beforehand to see if the doctor'' running late with appointments.  "We also teach them the language doctors use -–what cholesterol is, what causes a heart attack, what encompasses prostate cancer, what a digital examination is and the importance of knowing your family history of health."

Bernard believes that if you can engage men, as is the case with CAMH health nights and workplace sessions, you're well on the way to changing their habits.  At follow-up sessions, he hears from men who have gone for their first check-up for years.