NSW ranks third place for men’s health in Australia says new report card
The state of men’s health in the NSW is lagging women’s health, according to a new report published today in Sydney during Men’s Health Week.
The NSW Men’s Health Report Card 2019 produced by the Australian Men’s Health Forum (AMHF) highlights a number of areas of concern including the fact that men in the NSW are dying nearly six years younger than women on average.
AMHF, the national peak body for men’s health, is calling on the NSW Government to invest more time, money and resources into improving the lives and health of men and boys.
Jonathan Bedloe, President of AMHF said:
“This report card on the state of men and boys’ health in the NSW tells us we must do better. Our sons are less educated than our daughters. Our brothers die younger than our sisters. Our fathers are more likely to die at work than our mothers. Our male friends are more likely to die by suicide than our female friends.
“The solution to these problems is not to stop working to improve the lives of women and girls, but to increase our efforts to tackle the issues facing men and boys. This means investing more time, money and resources into helping health services become more male-friendly and focused on the needs of men and boys.
“It also means looking at the wider social factors that shape men’s health, which include boys’ education, our experiences of fatherhood, our working lives, our financial wellbeing and our social connections.”
According to the report, which brings together the latest available data from a range of Government sources:
- men in the NSW die 5.9 years younger (the average age of death in 2017 being 79.6 years for males and 85.5 years for females)
- 5 times more NSW men aged 35-44 die from more heart disease than women the same age
- 1 in 3 NSW men (30.9%) die of cancer compared with 1 in 4 women (25.1%)
- 3 in 4 NSW suicides are men (683 of the 880 suicides in 2017)
- 90% of workplace fatalities in QLD men (50 out of 62 deaths in 2017)
- 3 in 4 road fatalities are male, with 5 men and boys a week dying in road accidents.
The report also highlights some of the broader social issues that are known to impact men and boys’ health such as education, employment, finances and family life. According to the most recent Government data:
- boys in the NSW are 40% more likely than girls to drop our of school before the end of Year 12
- 3 in 10 new fathers in the NSW (31.5%) are not married
- 1 in 5 NSW children (20.5%) live in lone parent families
- The number of men not in the labour force has risen by around 150% since 1978, more than 6 times the rate at which the number of women not in the labour force has risen.
When compared with other states and territories, New South Wales was ranked in 3rd place for men’s health behind Victoria (2nd) and the ACT (1st) and ahead of South Australia (4th), Western Australia (5th), Queensland (6th), Tasmania (7th) and the Northern Territory (8th).
Glen Poole, CEO of AMHF said:
“The National Men’s Health Strategy calls on governments at all levels to address the unique needs of men and boys through their policies, programs and services. To date, just two States have developed a men’s health strategy and most Government initiatives to improve our physical and mental health aren’t specifically targeted at men and boys.
“The NSW Government is leading by example with its statewide framework or men’s health, but the statistics uncovered in our report on the current state of male health in NSW demonstrate that there is much work still to do to improve the lives and health of men and boys.”
DOWNLOAD THE NSW MEN'S HEALTH REPORT CARD 2019
DOWNLOAD THE QUEENSLAND MEN'S HEALTH REPORT CARD
DOWNLOAD THE ACT MEN'S HEALTH CARD REPORT
DOWNLOAD THE NATIONAL MEN'S HEALTH REPORT CARD
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