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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-06-03 Daily Xml
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INTERNATIONAL MEN'S HEALTH WEEK

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (15:50): I would like to bring to the attention of this house that next week is International Men's Health Week, a week of activities and events across Australia designed to focus on the health and wellbeing of men in our community. The question may arise: why would we care about men's health and wellbeing?

Ms Bedford: For several reasons!

Mr PICCOLO: For several reasons. I will tell you more. We should all care about issues that impact on the individual's ability to lead a fulfilling life. Men are no different. While it is true that men still hold some advantages in some walks of life—

Members interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Koutsantonis): Order! The member will be heard in silence.

Mr PICCOLO: Thank you for your protection, Mr Acting Speaker. It is certainly not true across the board. It is important to be concerned about men's health and wellbeing because men are also, importantly, husbands, fathers, grandfathers, partners, sons, brothers and friends. We are not looking at men per se, but we are looking at men in terms of their relationships with other people around them. It is important to note that their health actually impacts on the health and wellbeing of those around them, so it is important that we pay attention to the health and wellbeing of men.

Mr Griffiths interjecting:

Mr PICCOLO: I'm glad that you do. I would like to mention some of the issues which have been brought to my attention. For example, men are more likely to die prematurely across all age groups than women. Men also have undetected diseases longer than women do. There are also lower levels of health literacy amongst men. More women have a stroke but age-standardised incidence rates indicate that more men have a stroke at a younger age. More men are likely to die from diabetes than females.

There is a higher overall incidence of cancer among men than women. Injury rate, for example, is twice as high for men as it is for females. Men account for more than two-thirds of all people with acquired brain injury. Men are also more likely to be smokers than females, are more likely to experience high blood pressure than females, and significantly more men are overweight or obese than females. More men report high risk alcohol consumption levels than females.

These are some of the indicators that show that we need to do something about men's health and wellbeing, and some things are being done. One of the things I would like to bring to the attention of the house is the Freemasons Foundation Centre for Men's Health, of which I am a patron together with the member for Fisher, and the foundation, in conjunction with the University of Adelaide, is pouring millions of dollars into men's health research.

The goals of the Freemasons Foundation Centre for Men's Health are to develop a comprehensive and multidisciplinary research program to improve men's health, to establish a men's health clinic that models best practice in the provision of integrated health services for men, to establish an early career researcher development program to attract high quality researchers from interstate and overseas, to develop an evidence-based continuing education program for health professionals with an interest in men's health, and lastly to establish a broad base of funding to support reduced strategic vulnerability of limited funding resources.

Some other things happening in men's health include a men's health course run by Dr Murray Drummond at the University of South Australia, a course which I have completed and which I would recommend to other people working in men's health policy. Also I would like to bring to the attention of the house the forthcoming men's health policy to be introduced by the federal government.

Just to give some context to the next issue that I wish to raise, five men a day suicide in this country, and the attention it gets is very minimal. If you contrasted that to five whales beaching on our coastlines every day, it would be making front-page news around the country. Why is it that five men suiciding attracts less attention than five whales suiciding around this country?

Professor McDonald from the Australasian Men's Health Forum said that there is an assumption in the community that men are doing quite well and do not need extra help. His view is that this is incorrect, and psychologist and author Elizabeth Celi said that it would be simplistic for a men's health policy just to focus on the physical problems. In her view, physical, psychological, social and family health must be included in any national men's health policy. She goes on to say that simple gender differences on men's health matters must be recognised and that men and women are different in their health needs. Unfortunately, the health systems in this country do not quite recognise that.

Time expired.

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