Australian Male: Illness, Injury and Death by Socialisation

Chapter 1: The Australian Male: Illness, Injury and Death by Socialization — a Paradox of Health Inequalities

Description:

Many men's health problems in Australia are preventable. They are broad public health issues such as lifestyle, health-risk behaviour and poor health care service utilisation. Improving men's health in Australia depends on a number of prerequisites. These include the recognition that: men's poor health status and health risk are an outcome of risk behaviour; men's poor health outcomes should not taken for granted as a cultural norm; men's health problems are not going to be solved by biomedicine alone; men's health and behaviour is not predominantly predetermined by biogenetic factors — lifestyle and socialisation are some of the most important factors; men's health is very much influenced by construct issues such as  male socialisation and the models of masculinity that predominate in the Australian culture; the unreasonable expectations placed on young men to conform to male stereotypic behaviour result in health-risk behaviour which is detrimental to health; and ultimately, men are the only people who can improve men's health by being given permission to participate in problem solving and the decision-making process

Topics:

• Introduction
• Men’s health status
• Gender issues
• Raising awareness
• Conclusion

Author:

Allan K. Huggins
Master of Education, Advanced Diploma of Adolescent Development, Certificate of Technology, Member of the British Association for Behavioural Psychotherapy Senior Lecturer and Director, Men's Health Teaching and Research Unit, School of Public Health, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia

The Men's Health Teaching and Research Unit is the first of its kind in any university in Australia. It offers a certificate course in men's health taught both internally and externally around Australia and in New Zealand. This course has recently been accredited by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. The Unit is also involved in a range of men's health issues around Australia. In 1995 Allan Huggins was appointed to the Men's Health National Policy Development Committee which drafted the first National Men's Health Policy Document. His teaching and research interests include men's health epidemiology, policy development, tertiary education development and risk behaviour, including self-harm and suicide; the social determinants of health; and health services law and ethics.

Of this chapter Allan said, 'I thought that writing this chapter might provide a contribution to both informing and directing current and future endeavours in the area of men's health in Australia.'

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