Lifestyle Still Cutting Short Men's Lives

Men's Health and Lifestyle

Professor Alan White, Professor of Men's Health in the School of Health & Community Care and Chair of the Men's Health presented his latest research at the Royal College of Nursing's 2006 International Nursing Research Conference in York today.

His research finds that men are still likely to die at a younger age than women but the differences are more than just biology " lifestyle is implicated in the majority of health conditions in men.

In a study of patterns of mortality among men and women aged 15-44 years, spanning 44 countries across the globe, due to be published later this year, Professor White and Professor Mike Holmes, Dean of the Faculty of Health and Professor of Health Psychology, found that, on average, rates of death of young men were over 2.5 times that of young women. This pattern was most marked in Eastern European Countries with some having more than four times as many of their young men dying in this age group.

"We are seeing some improvements in the life expectancy of men but this could be much better if lifestyle behaviours in these early years could be effectively addressed."

The study showed that in the majority of countries accidents were the principal cause of death in young men, but a substantial number were also due to suicide and diseases, such as cardio-vascular disease and malignant neoplasms.

"The rate of death as a result of cardio-vascular disease and cancer increase three to four- fold in the 35-44 age group when compared to the 25-34 age group, suggesting that problems have been building up in the years when men are known to be poor at accessing health care or paying serious attention to their own health needs," Professor White said.

Lifestyle is also implicated in the 4.5-fold increase in the rate of deaths in the UK, as a result of chronic liver failure and cirrhosis, between the 25-34 and 35-44 age groups.

"All this means we have to be much more active in targeting younger men to both reduce disease and prevent premature death," Professor White said. "We have to find new and innovative ways of working with men and boys at a public health and individual level so that their lifestyles can be improved, and to encourage them to seek more readily health care when necessary."

The symposium in which the paper is being presented is looking at research focused on services aimed specifically at men and how they use conventional services.

Professor White said there were substantial differences between countries in the causes of male deaths, reflecting varying cultural and environmental factors. After excluding countries who categorised deaths in slightly different ways, the UK was found to have relatively low rates of death among young men as a result of accidents (ranked 32 out of the 36 countries in the main comparative study); malignant neoplasms (28 out of 36); homicide (27 out of 36); suicide (26 out of 36); and cardiovascular disease (24 out of the 36); The UK did less well in the league table of deaths from liver disease and cirrhosis among young men (15 out of 36).