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

Our new online community

16/09/15 . News

The Men's Health Forum has launched its new HealthUnlocked community: a safe space to share health experiences.

HealthUnlocked, the social network for health today known as the ‘LinkedIn for health’, allows people with health concerns to get answers in one place as well as give and receive support and connect with people with the same concerns as them. 

The new Men’s Health Community is being set up to address all aspects of men’s health including physical, mental and sexual.

A new survey  by HU of over 5,000 people has revealed that a staggering 58% of the men surveyed have hidden a medical condition from their friends and family. Another finding is that most men prefer to get advice from an online source if they have a sexual health problem. This highlights a desperate need for a reliable online resource for men to receive private, accurate and potentially anonymous advice.

'We are passionate about helping people – men and women alike. We want to enable them to connect with health organisations and with individuals that have the same medical concerns,' said Jorge Armanet, CEO of HU. 'We know that of our 300,000 registered users, men are the ones that use HealthUnlocked secretively ­- maybe because they won’t admit to having a health problem, or maybe because they just want the facts from peers at a time to suit them without having to visit a doctor.'

Power of peer support

MHF CEO Martin Tod urged men and those working with them to use the new hub. 'One in five men dies before the age of 65 - and we are looking forward to work with HealthUnlocked to change that. We’ve been working for years to make sure men can access relevant and useful information about health - and strongly believe in unlocking the power of peer support to help men tackle issues they might otherwise ignore. HealthUnlocked is a great tool that can support this cause and Men's Health Forum is delighted to be working with them.'

HealthUnlocked is a safe, online resource offering a peer­-to-­peer support network, allowing patients, caregivers and health advocates to connect safely online with guidance from credible organisations and institutions. It is not a substitute for a medical consultation.

Paul Nuki, former Chief Editor at NHS Choices said, 'HealthUnlocked is a fantastic platform, offering many benefits to healthcare as a whole. We often refer NHS Choices users to HealthUnlocked forums, fully confident they will receive first class peer-­to-­peer advice. It’s all about expert patients sharing their knowledge and, in turn, creating a new generation of experts. HealthUnlocked creates real efficiencies for the health service as a whole because we know that better informed patients make better choices and achieve better outcomes.'

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).