One man in five dies before the age of 65.
TOGETHER we can change that.

Now that's what I call a health lottery

10/06/19 . Blog

The tragic death of football manager Justin Edinburgh at the age of just 49 following a heart attack was another reminder, were one needed, of the health lottery.

We’re all mortal. Life is precious and precarious and too many lives end prematurely - one man in five dies before he's 65 as we remind all visitors to this site at the top of the page.

Of course there are things we can do as individuals to boost our own health but there are other influences we can’t control - our genes being the obvious one. However, our luck in the gene pool may not be as big a factor in male health as the postcode lottery. I don’t mean the drugs you’re prescribed or how good the local hospital is - although they may have tiny impact - I’m referring to life-expectancy.

A man living in the ward with the highest male life-expectancy (MLE) in the UK can expect to live over 90 years, a man in the ward with the lowest life-expectancy will be lucky to make 68. The wards in question? Warfield Harvest Ride in Bracknell Forest (MLE 90.3 years) and Bloomfield in Blackpool (MLE 68.2 years). That’s a gap of over 22 years. Twenty two years is equivalent to more than a quarter of the length of the average male life in England and Wales - the current UK MLE is about 79 years.

We’ve seen a massive increase in life-expectancy since the start of the last century (in 1901 MLE was about 48 years). But it’s no longer rising.

Address inequalities

So yes, don’t smoke, drink sensibly, eat well, take some exercise, don’t stress and do all those other things we know can help but if you really care about your health, fight inequality. The real health gap is not between men and women but between the men lucky enough to live in the richest neighbourhoods and those who do not. The Men’s Health Forum is calling on all local authorities to draft an action plan to address the inequalities in their area. How does you local authority do?

Jim Pollard, site editor
[Jim also blogs at jimpollard.co.uk]

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

Registered with the Fundraising Regulator

Contact
Address
  • The Men's Health Forum
  • 82 Tanner Street
  • London, SE1 3GN

Charity registered in England and Wales (no. 1087375). Company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (no. 4142349).