Australia Needs a
National Men's Health Policy

  

The Australasian Men’s Health Forum (AMHF) applauds the government for laying the basis for Australia’s first National Men's Health Policy. 

To ensure that the men of Australia benefit appropriately from the new policy we are asking you to give up 5 minutes to do three things to support the development of a useful National Men's Health Policy:

  1. View this page in Internet Explorer preferably. Read the information below to familiarise yourself with the rationale behind you making a personal submission to the National Men's Health Policy

  2. Click on the SEND button at the bottom of the page to send a prepared (but fully editable) email to the Federal Health and Shadow Health Ministers telling them of your support

  3. If you found out about this web page in an email, please forward the email you received to at least 5 other people (men, women, anyone that you think supports men's health) and ask them to also send an email to the politicians informing them of their support.

Background

Two of our executive members were named as Men's Health Ambassadors - Dr Mick Adams and Professor John Macdonald. The AMHF has actively encouraged our members from across Australia to participate in the national consultation process. We have sent all members details of policy forums and encouraged members to go along. We have also encouraged members to write their own individual submissions to the policy.

The AMHF has encouraged member organisations to host their own policy consultations in locations not reached by DoHA and developed guidelines for hosting such events. The AMHF has also held consultations (both face to face and surveys) with specific groups of men, including older men and gay men to ensure that their needs and concerns are raised.

AMHF is pleased that Australia will have a men's health policy but strongly exhorts the government to create some structure which will be able to draw together the needs of boys and men across Australia, reflecting their diversity and their varying life contexts, whether Aboriginal men struggling against marginalisation, boys at school, men in the home, the workplace or in retirement.

This is what we understand when the discussion document speaks of the social determinants of men's health.  The lack of any structure or clear accountability for creating and monitoring successful outcomes in improving men's health, is the most important reason why so many good men's health initiatives have not been sustained in recent years.  

A national men's health structure could, for example, take the form of a cross-government committee, or a National Interagency made up of government and non-government stakeholders, or a specific office within DoHA. 

  •      The AMHF applauds the idea of "men-friendly" health services and the idea that better use of these services calls for designated health care worker training programs that would make our health care system more effective at engaging men.

  •     We strongly suggest that the Policy does not become just a series of expensive health promotion campaigns focused upon male behaviour change. For example encouraging men to change their diets in order to address cardiovascular disease, when all the evidence points to the fact that a major cause of  this condition is stress and not men's behaviour. 

  •      The AMHF applauds the intention to reduce the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health status and looks to the policy to direct funds to be spent in providing Aboriginal male-friendly services.

  •      We also suggest that there be an increase in evidence-based research on men's health issues and that the funding be provided for current effective community men’s health promotion programs and services that have improved male health outcomes.

Please show your support for the points raised above and the need for their inclusion in the National Men's Health Policy.  Send a message to the Health Minister and Shadow Health Minister by:

  1. if you wish, editing the text in the window below to reflect your personal views

  2. adding your name, address and contact details at the bottom of the text, and then

  3. clicking on the SEND button.

Clicking on the SEND button while reading this page within Internet Explorer should (but might not always) launch your email client with a prepared email ready to send. If this fails, copy and paste the text in the window below into an email and address it to:

Peter.Dutton.MP@aph.gov.au, Nicola.Roxon.MP@aph.gov.au, amhf@menshealthaustralia.net  

 

Make your changes to the text in the window, add your name, address and contact
details at the bottom of the message, and then click on the SEND button.

To launch your email client to send the message to the relevant politicians, simply click on this button now!

If clicking on the SEND button fails to launch your email client (Outlook Express, Entourage, Mac Mail, Eudora, Thunderbird, Lotus Notes, etc), copy and paste the text in the window into an email and address to:
 Peter.Dutton.MP@aph.gov.au, Nicola.Roxon.MP@aph.gov.au, amhf@menshealthaustralia.net  

Now, before you close this page, remember to forward the email you received to at least 5 other people (men, women, anyone that you think supports men's health) and ask them to also send an email to the politicians informing them of their support.