2019/2020 was a year of two parts - with almost all the year spent working on the challenges of men's health across a wide range of areas - including mental health, diabetes, sexual health, cancer, cardiovascular disease and the huge health inequalities between different men - building on our priorities and achievements of 2018/19 - and then - right at the end of the year - a period of intense activity responding to the huge threat to men's health presented by COVID..
Pre-COVID achievements over the year included:
- Providing evidence to the UK Parliament Women & Equalities Committee on the mental health of men and boys - and their chair's subsequent endorsement of a Men's Health Policy for England
- Presenting on the key issues of men's health at the Scottish Parliament's Cross-Party Group on Health Inequalities - triggering a discussion of a Men's Health Policy for Scotland
- Successfully launching our new Man MOT Man Manual
- Creating a new Men's Health Champion programme in partnership with Interreg 2 Seas Step by Step (SBS), Hampshire County Council and Men's Health Forum Associates - Jim Pollard and Peter Baker
- Successfully running Men's Health Week with a strong focus on health inequalities.
In March it became clear that COVID was going to disproportionately affect men, and this became our overwhelming priority leading us to:
- Develop and launch new web content with the latest information on the biology and behavioural aspects of COVID-19 - and the latest information and advice for men
- Develop, launch and regularly update a new Toolbox Talk for employers to use with their employees
- Take the UK lead on the issues of men and COVID - writing to Public Health England and the Chief Medical Officers highlighting the issues raised
- Transform our work arrangements to be COVID-safe for staff, associates and trustees
Raising the importance of men's health - the men of today and the men of tomorrow
Our revised strategy in 2017 highlighted the importance of doing more to raise men's health issues in Parliament and so we were delighted to have the opportunity to meet the Women & Equalities Committee in June 2019 to answer their questions about our submission to their review of men’s and boys' mental health.
We took the opportunity in our submission to highlight the role a men's health policy could have on this and so were particularly pleased in November when their chair - Maria Miller MP - included a recommendation that serious consideration should be given to creating a National Men's Health Strategy in her summary of the review.
We also made encouraging progress in Scotland - being invited to present to the Cross-Party Group on Health Inequalities at the Scottish Parliament in January 2020.
We had an encouraging response and Voluntary Health Scotland offered to coordinate a group to develop a way forward on men's health. There is still work to be done to gain commitment to the idea of a national policy - but it felt a genuine step forward.
In October 2019, we also had the opportunity to go to Cardiff to meet Public Health Wales and discuss inequalities issues there. When we FOIed the three national health bodies in 2018 to understand their response to the WHO Europe Men's Health Policy, Public Health Wales had by far the most thorough and thought-through response - and we remain interested in collaborating with them.
In February 2020, we actively engaged with a Public Health England proposal to cut back on chlamydia screening amongst boys. We were particularly concerned about the proposal since much of the evidence submitted showed how important the programme is to encouraging good sexual health and awareness, as well as condom use, amongst boys.
Throughout the year, we continued to actively participate in the Department of Health & Social Care Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) Health & Wellbeing Alliance - leading to meetings with and presentations to Public Health England, NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care on men's health inequalities in areas such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, smoking, bowel cancer, mental health and the inequalities between different groups of men.
Then, as the year ended, we became extremely concerned at the lack of gender-disaggregated reporting on COVID by statutory bodies and their failure to consider the extra risk from COVID faced by men. We quickly convened a group to pull together the latest global evidence on COVID and men and used this to write, as the year ended, to the Chief Medical Officers of England, Wales and Scotland - as well as the then Chief Executive of Public Health England. It rapidly became clear that getting an evidence-led approach that acknowledged the greater risk amongst men and the different interventions needed in some cases to address this was going to be a huge priority for the coming 12 months.
Leading provision of dedicated health information for men
Our website continues to be hugely important in enabling our health content to reach men - with more than 1.3 million visits and 1.8 million page views in 2019/20.
As soon as COVID started to have an impact, we created a COVID landing page on the site - as well as COVID FAQs for men - and downloadable materials such as a COVID Toolbox Talk.
Our second main route for getting health information to men is our Man Manuals - produced in partnership with Haynes. We continued to grow the reach of these manuals in 2019/20 - with a 76% increase in the number of men reached via our bulk manuals partially offset by a decline in our 'bespoke' manuals.
Following the successful launch of the 4th edition of the Man Manual, we followed up with a new Man MOT manual - built around challenges to help men improve their health. This exceeded our expectations, requiring us to quickly reprint.
Our other new publication of the year was the new "How to be a Men's Health Champion" guide -produced for Hampshire County Council as part of the the Interreg 2 Seas Step By Step project, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund.
Finally, pre-COVID, we also continued to mark major sporting events with special guides - with the launch of our Snooker Survival Guide in partnership with the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association to mark the world championships, which was printed and circulated to every club in the country.
Focus on men and boys from the most disadvantaged areas, groups and communities
The life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest men is far greater than the life expectancy gap between men and women - and greater than the life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest women. Men are overrepresented amongst some of the groups with the worst health - including people in the criminal justice system and rough sleepers.
In response, we focused on male health inequality as part of our Men's Health Week 'Men's Health by Numbers' campaign in June 2019 - once again strongly supported by employers, health professionals, charity partners and individual men and women across the country.
One particular number that we focused on was that the richest men live on average 10 years longer than the least well-off men. We published a report showing the life-expectancy gap between the most and least deprived wards in every local authority area in England.
A second area of work was our collaboration with Food Nation on the Movember-funded Men's Pie Club project - which brought groups of isolated men together every week to make pies.
Chris Stein led our work on this - and as part of the final celebration of the project summarised lessons learned on isolation and the impact of the project.
Finally, we worked with the Race Equality Foundation to develop communication materials as part of their DHSC Health & Wellbeing Alliance-funded Black Men and Blood Pressure project - producing a well-received range of project materials designed to communicate effectively the need to take action to tackle the impact of high blood pressure amongst a group of men who are particularly affected.
Strengthening our network
We continue to grow our network. On Twitter, we now have nearly 13,000 followers, and more than 5,900 people are signed up to receive our email news. Our men's health group on HealthUnlocked now has more than 24,000 members and our new penis health group has 17,000.
We continue to tailor our communication with different newsletters for professionals, for men and for voluntary sector organisations that are working to help men.
We also have taken the opportunity of major events to reach out to other voluntary and statutory partners by attending events such as the UK Men's Sheds Association Shedfest, NHS Expo, the Public Health England conference and the excellent launch of Hampshire Constabulary's Men's Forum - with a thought-provoking and inspiring one-day conference on men's mental health.
Addressing our funding challenges
After stabilising our income in 2018/19, we saw a small drop in 2019/20, but, through careful cost management, we were able to improve our net funding by around £11,055 by year end.
Contributors to this included increased manual sales - following the launch of Man MOT and showing the full-year impact of the launch of the 4th edition of the Man Manual - offset by a decline in grant funding especially from the Department of Health & Social Care.
To address this shortfall, we reduced our accommodation costs as well as staff and contractor costs.
Looking to the year ahead, COVID presents major financial challenges - since the evidence of the March 2020 lowdown is that this will significantly reduce publications income. In the coming year, we will be:
- Encouraging more voluntary giving to support our work on COVID, leveraging our web traffic and email lists to drive digital fundraising - especially regular giving
- Looking to expand the take-up of our training offer - following the successful Hampshire pilot of the Men's Health Champion programme
- Continuing to develop new content and trialling new digital ways to monetise it
- Looking for bid opportunities - recognising that funding opportunities will be mainly focused on service delivery to people affected by COVID
- Seeking to further cut cost, including the option of giving up our office altogether.
Looking to the future
COVID is a huge challenge for us organisationally, but also crystallises many of the issues of men's health - with its tight linkage between men's health behaviours and attitudes, male biology, the devastating extra effects of deprivation and other health inequalities, and poor COVID outcomes.
Depending on the economic impacts of COVID and the impact of 'long COVID', we may also see long-term mental health effects, including the potential of increased suicide levels, long after the pandemic has subsided.
We also need to be aware of opportunities, with some of the changes in health systems - such as remote consultations - potentially bringing improvements for the many working-age men who work long hours and commute long distances.
Even so, when we get to the point that COVID is effectively controlled, we will still face huge challenges.
There is plenty to do – and we look forward to working with our supporters and partners to help make it happen in 2020/21.