Qld comes in 6th place as Men's Health Card released
The state of men’s health in Queensland is not as good as women’s health, according to a new report published on Monday 10 June during Men’s Health Week.
The Queensland Men’s Health Report Card 2019 published by the Australian Men’s Health Forum (AMHF) highlights a number of areas of concern including the fact that men in Queensland are dying six years younger than women on average.
AMHF, the national peak body for men’s health, is calling on the Queensland 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 Queensland 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 QLD die 6.1 years younger ( the average of death in 2017 being 77.8 years for males and 83.9 years for females)
- 5 times more QLD men aged 45-54 die from more heart disease than women the same age
- 1 in 3 QLD men (33.2%) die of cancer compared with 1 in 4 women (27%)
- 3 in 4 QLD suicides are men (609 of the 804 suicides in 2017)
- 96% of workplace fatalities in QLD men (43 out of 45 deaths in 2017)
- 3 in 4 road fatalities are male, with 4 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 QLD are 40% more likely than girls to drop out of school before the end of Year 12
- 2 in 5 new fathers QLD (42.3%) are not married
- 1 in 5 QLD children (20.4%) live in lone parent families
- Around 2 million men are experiencing economic insecurity
- The number of men not in the labour force has risen by over 270% since 1978, nearly 4 times the rate at which the number of women not in the labour force has risen.
When compared with other states and territories, Queensland was placed in 6th place for men’s health ahead of Tasmania and the Northern Territory but behind Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT.
According to AMHF, Australia is one of the few countries in the world that has developed a national men’s health strategy.
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 statistics uncovered in our report on the current state of male health in Queensland demonstrate that there is much work still to do. It’s time for the Queensland Government to take better care of men and boys’ health by developing a statewide men’s health policy.
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