Library Bulletin – Journal Articles – February 2010
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MEN'S HEALTH
O'BRIEN, R and HUNT, K and others. "The average Scottish man has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, lying there with a portion of chips": prospects for change in Scottish men's constructions of masculinity and their health-related beliefs and behaviours. Critical Public Health Vol 19, No 3-4 - September-December 2009: 363-381
Abstract: Men's apparent resistance to recommended health practices and their engagement with 'high-risk' behaviours has been associated with an increased risk of morbidity or mortality. Recent work has highlighted the need to think critically about the health-promoting behaviours that men appear reluctant to engage in, as well as examining those they embrace, and explore the gendered meanings that men attribute to their beliefs and behaviours. This article presents men's discussions of the 'practices of masculinity' and examines their relation to, and implications for, men's health-related behaviours as articulated in 15 focus group discussions (59 participants in total). The data capture both the experiences of men who felt pressured to engage in behaviours that may be harmful to their health in order to appear masculine and the accounts of those who regarded themselves as freer to embrace salutogenic health practices. Less is known about the circumstances that might encourage men to re-think their engagement in performances of masculinity that have potentially detrimental effects on their health. The data presented here suggest that ageing, illness, and fatherhood were some of the experiences that prompted men to re-evaluate their health practices.
SMITH, James A and WHITE, Alan K and others. The men's health policy contexts in Australia, the UK and Ireland: advancement or abandonment? Critical Public Health Vol 19, No 3-4 - September-December 2009: 427-440
Abstract: The state of men's health, internationally, is a deep public health concern. Despite pressure from the World Health Organisation that all health policy should consider the specific needs of both men and women through their push for 'gender mainstreaming', and increased interest in men's health, there have been relatively few gendered policy responses relating to men's health. In this article, we compare the men's health policy contexts in Australia, the UK and Ireland. We show that different advocacy groups have lobbied for men's health policies in these three jurisdictions and that different approaches have been adopted in order to advance or abandon men's health policy work. The absence of men's health policies or gender mainstreaming has severely limited the capacity to develop well-co-ordinated national programmes that meet the health needs of men and their families.