Women's health is inextricably linked to male health. The forum's report, entitled Men's Health - a Public Health Review, calls for a public health strategy for men. Public health minister Tessa Jowell attended the launch to give her support to the initiative. Improving access The forum, set up in 1994 by the Royal College of Nursing, said the government and other agencies should make more effort to help men access health resources. We need to access men and not rely on them coming into doctors' surgeries.
Men tend to be put off by clinical settings.
Outreach work at sports clubs and pubs had shown some success, she said. The forum is also calling for more training to be given to doctors on how to get men to open up about their health worries. Crisis lines for men and post-redundancy programmes are also proposed as well as practical measures to make suicide more difficult, for example, increasing the use of blister packs for paracetamols.