Primary Healthcare

Biography

Biography: John J Macdonald

Abstract

Title: The social determinants of men’s health

Globally there has been a growth in interest in men’s health in the past two decades. At the time of writing there are three countries with national male health policies: Ireland, Brazil and Australia. The thinking and research on men’s health can (of course in a necessarily oversimplified but nevertheless accurate  manner) be seen to revolve around three themes which are to some extent reflected in these policies and other current work on men’s health. These themes are:

• Urological concerns: diseases of the prostate and erectile dysfunction. This strand has  considerable support from the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry
• Men’s behaviour: medical and health sociologists and health promotion professionals draw attention to men’s health threatening behaviour, often ascribed to “masculinity”, seen as a propensity to violence and competition and negative lifestyle choices like smoking and alcohol consumption
• The social determinants of health approach: this strand of thinking draws on the World Health Organization’s promotion of the social determinants of health (the enormous influence of life context on people’s health, like work, the social gradient and social support).

The presentation will overview these approaches to men’s health policies and suggest that the third one (social determinants) can include the other two while providing  a way forward, globally, towards an evidence-based approach in the formulation of global men’s health policies.

Recent Publications:

Macdonald, J., Scholes. T, & Powell. K, (2016), Listening to Australian Indigenous men: stories of incarceration and hope, Primary Health Care Research & Development, 17 (6), 568-577

Macdonald J., (2016), A Different Framework for Looking at Men’s Health

International Journal of Men’s Health, Vol 15, NO. 3, Winter, 283-295.

Pirkis, J., Macdonald,  J. & English., D.R. (eds) (2016) Expanding the knowledge on male health: findings from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health (Ten to Men) BMC Public Health 2016 16 (Suppl 3)

Macdonald John (2014). Men’s health and wellbeing: Learning through the lifecourse, in Men learning through Life, B Golding, Robert Mark and Annette Foley (Eds),  Niace (National Institute of Continuing Education)Leicester pp 34-48.

Macdonald, J. J., Sliwka, G., Smith, A., & Trezise, E. (2014). Pathways to Despair: A Study of Male Suicide (aged 25-44) Public Health Research, 4(2): 62-70