Male Health Initiative – Evaluation report

The MHI helps men’s health organisations to:

• maintain information and raise awareness on key health issues affecting Australian males
• provide support to men and help direct men to needed support
• participate in efforts to develop national policy and programs relating to men
• gather and report evidence and trends relating to key male health issues.

Healthy Male, the Australian Men’s Health Forum and the Centre for Male Health have all received funding from the MHI since 2017.

The evaluation involved:

• surveys of website users
• interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders and health professionals
• review of performance reports and other data prepared by the funded organisations
• a literature review, to identify current policy and practice in male health across different jurisdictions in Australia.

Key findings include:

• The MHI has achieved broad reach to men and health professionals, however there is an opportunity to better reach diverse communities.
• Funded organisations have successfully delivered their activities within agreed timeframes.
• Collaboration between the funded organisations could be improved.
• The MHI has increased knowledge and awareness of male health among men and health professionals, however there is an opportunity to better meet the needs of men.
• Organisations would benefit from diversifying their funding sources.

We are working with funded organisations to address these findings.

Important considerations:

• funded organisations have not necessarily verified the data and content of the evaluation
• Healthy Male was less than 12 months into a major rebranding exercise, which have affected statistics and impact =
• since the evaluation was done in early 2021, all 3 funded organisations have made progress in implementing evaluation recommendations.