A Campaign to Extend Men's Lives
Seeking to help men live longer, healthier lives, Dr. Larry Goldenberg, Head of the Department of Urologic Sciences, announced the creation of the Men’s Health Initiative of BC – an interdisciplinary project, unique in Canada, that will gather the best available research about men’s health and disseminate that knowledge to as broad an audience as possible.
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| Dr. Larry Goldenberg (right), consulting with a patient. |
The first phase of the initiative, which begins now, is an interactive website, www.aboutmen.ca, aimed at both the public and health care practitioners. The initiative also has commissioned the Men’s Health Report, which will highlight the most significant issues in the male health domain and make recommendations for clinical practice, research and health policy. Both efforts were funded with $1 million raised by the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation.
UBC President Stephen J. Toope, speaking at the launch, said the project “presents further opportunities for our Faculty of Medicine to put its teaching and research strength to work on an initiative that is of tremendous value to British Columbians.”
“There is much that can be accomplished by stimulating wider awareness about the most common men’s health issues, and by compelling higher percentages of the adult male population to take proactive and preventive action with respect to managing their own health,” Professor Toope said.
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Dr. Goldenberg noted that Canadian men die, on average, four to five years before women, and the prognosis for several conditions, including lung cancer, HIV infection and cardiovascular disease, is worse for men than women. Men also contend with a range of male-specific conditions, including prostate and testicular cancer and male sexual dysfunction. Cardiovascular disease, suicide and motor vehicle accidents are the top three reasons that men die before women.
“Many 40-year-old men are more interested in looking after their cars than their bodies,” Dr. Goldenberg says. “We know this catches up to them in the form of acute illness, chronic disease, and even depression.”
Dr. Goldenberg says he is hoping to replicate the success of the three-decades old women’s health movement in raising awareness among the public about the risk and ways to lessen those risks. Perhaps, he suggested, public education events can be brought to places where men can be easily reached – hockey or football games, or automobile repair shops.
"The idea of men's health is another kind of lens through which healthcare delivery, education, research, prevention and awareness campaigs and public health policy may be viewed," says Kevin Falcon, BC's Minister of Health Services, which has provided more than $18 million to the Vancouver Prostate Centre at VGH over the last eight years.
