Applying a genders lens to public health discourses on men's health

The state of men’s health is something that continues to generate cause for concern across many areas of the globe. The main concern relates to men’s poorer rates of longevity compared to those of women. In the developed world (or ‘Global North’) this difference has been reported in Australia (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2011;ANPHA, 2013), North America (White, 2008; Oliffe et al., 2010), and across Europe(European Commission, 2011; White et al., 2011a). These sex differences – inequalities –in longevity across these geographical locations vary tremendously. Within Europe, for example, the lowest difference is found in Iceland where it is 3.3 years; whereas the greatest differences are found in Eastern Europe with Latvia having the largest gap of11.3 years. Yet it is not just within the Global North that such gender disparities exist. Papers analysing data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (Horton, 2012)show that across the globe women have longer life expectancy than men.