What we’re doing about men’s health

The National Men's Health Strategy

The National Men’s Health Strategy 2020–2030 aims to help every man and boy in Australia to live a long, fulfilling, and healthy life. It will improve health outcomes for Australian males by:

• helping men and boys optimise their own, and each other’s, health and wellbeing
• building the evidence base for improving men’s health
• strengthening the health system’s capacity to provide quality appropriate care for men and boys.

Initiatives and programs

Male Health Initiative

This initiative supports male health organisations to raise awareness and education on key men’s health issues, such as: mental health and chronic conditions. This includes informing policy through stakeholder consultation and building the evidence base.

Organisations funded were:

• Healthy Male
• the Australian Men’s Health Forum
• the Centre for Male Health (Western Sydney University).

An independent evaluation of the Male Health Initiative was done in 2021. Read the evaluation report.

Men's sheds

Men’s sheds are community-based, non-commercial organisations that are open to all men. Learn about the work we're doing to support men's sheds.

Research studies

We are supporting the following studies:

• the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health (Ten to Men) – this study follows boys and men over time as they transition through the different stages of life, aiming to
  • inform government policy and program development in male health
  • support researchers working in the men’s health space
• conducting a gap analysis of evidence for male health – this will involve
  • an in-depth literature review
  • stakeholder consultation process
• conducting a literature review to assess the barriers to health system access by men and boys
• reviewing higher education curricula to identify training gaps in effective gendered communication – read the final report of the first phase of the Men’s Health Education for Health Professionals project led by Movember, where stage one involved
  • review of Australian Continuing Professional Development Programs and Australian tertiary education curricula
  • university staff and medical student surveys and consultations
  • a scoping review of the peer-reviewed literature
  • in-depth focus groups with men.

Other preventive health initiatives

Read about other preventive health work we fund that will impact the health of men and boys in Australia.