Healthy Men 2030: Setting Men’s Health Goals as a Tool to Improve the Nation’s Health and Achieve Health Equity

African American men’s health has at times been regarded as irrelevant to the health and well-being of the communities where they are born, grow, live, work, and age. The uniqueness of being male and of African descent calls for a critical examination and deeper understanding of the psycho-socio-historical context in which African American men have lived. There is a critical need for scholarship that better contextualizes African American Male Theory and cultural humility in terms of public health. Furthermore, the focus of much of the social determinants of health and health equity policy literature has been on advocacy, but few researchers have examined why health-related public policies have not been adopted and implemented from a political and theoretical policy analysis perspective. The purpose of this article will be to examine African American men’s health within the context of social determinants of health status, health behavior, and health inequalities—elucidating policy implications for system change and providing recommendations from the vantage point of health equity.

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“Centering the Margins”: Moving Equity to the Center of Men’s Health Research

American Journal of Men s Health ◽

10.1177/1557988318773973 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 12 (5) ◽

pp. 1317-1327 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Derek M. Griffith

Keyword(s):

Health Disparities ◽

Health Equity ◽

Men’S Health ◽

Men's Health ◽

Men Of Color ◽

Equity Research ◽

Health Equity Research ◽

Health Progress ◽

Race Ethnicity ◽

Primary Focus

How might the science of men’s health progress if research on marginalized or subordinated men is moved from the margins of the literature to the center? This commentary seeks to answer this question, suggesting that if more attention is paid to men of color and other marginalized men, the field will be greatly enriched in its ability to understand determinants of men’s health. Reimagining men’s health by moving men’s health disparities to a primary focus of the field may yield critical new insights that would be essential to moving men’s health to the center of health equity research. Focusing on the dual goals of improving the health of marginalized men and examining the determinants of disparities among men and between men and women will yield insights into mechanisms, pathways, and strategies to improve men’s health and address health disparities. Current definitions of health disparities limit the nation’s ability to dedicate resources to populations that need attention—men of color and other marginalized men—that do not fit these definitions. Moving marginalized men to the center of research in men’s health will foster new ways of understanding determinants of men’s health that cannot be identified without focusing on populations of men whose health is as influenced by race, ethnicity, and other structures of marginalization as it is by gender and masculinities. Using Black men as a case example, the article illustrates how studying marginalized men can refine the study of men’s health and health equity.

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Need to close the men’s health gap for health equity

Reproductive Health Matters ◽

10.1016/j.rhm.2015.07.014 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 23 (45) ◽

pp. 166-166

Keyword(s):

Health Equity ◽

Men’S Health ◽

Men's Health ◽

Health Gap

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Men’s Health Equity

10.4324/9781315167428 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Derek M. Griffith ◽

Marino A. Bruce ◽

Roland J. Thorpe

Keyword(s):

Health Equity ◽

Men’S Health ◽

Men's Health

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“I AM a Man”: Manhood, Minority Men’s Health and Health Equity

Ethnicity & Disease ◽

10.18865/ed.25.3.287 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 25 (3) ◽

pp. 287 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

Derek M. Griffith, PhD

Keyword(s):

Social Norms ◽

Life Course ◽

Health Outcomes ◽

Health Equity ◽

Stress Responses ◽

Men’S Health ◽

Life Course Perspective ◽

Men's Health ◽

The Life Course ◽

Over Time

Objective: To consider how manhood is a key social determinant of minority men’s health.Design: This commentary explicates how manhood intersects with other determinants of health to shape minority men’s stress responses, health behaviors and health outcomes across the life course.Results: Manhood, which perpetually needs to be proven, is an aspirational identity that is defined by the intersection of age, race/ethnicity and other identities. Minority men seek to and successfully embody US-cultural and ethnic-specific aspects of manhood in their daily lives by engaging in behaviors that constantly reaffirm their gender identity through a complex internal and social calculus that varies by intra-personal characteristics and context. Manhood and health are relational constructs that highlight how the salience of masculinities are shaped by perceived and actual social norms and expectations. A life course perspective adds a framework for considering how some gendered beliefs, goals and behaviors change over time while others remain static. Three life course frameworks highlight different mechanisms through which minority men’s life experiences and physiological and behavioral responses to gendered social norms, beliefs and expectations become embodied as premature mortality and other health outcomes over the life course.Conclusion: Manhood represents an important lens to understand how minority men’s identities, goals and priorities affect their health, yet the role of manhood in minority men’s health is understudied and underdeveloped. To achieve health equity, it is critical to consider how manhood shapes minority men’s lives and health across the life course, and to address how manhood affects gendered and non-gendered mechanisms and pathways that explain minority men’s health over time. Ethn Dis. 2015;25(3):287-293.

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Promoting Men’s Health Equity

American Journal of Men s Health ◽

10.1177/1557988320980184 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 14 (6) ◽

pp. 155798832098018

Author(s):

Derek M. Griffith

Keyword(s):

Health Equity ◽

Tobacco Cessation ◽

Men’S Health ◽

Comparative Approach ◽

Men's Health ◽

Original Research ◽

Dissemination And Implementation ◽

Special Collection ◽

Alternative Masculinities ◽

Dissemination And Implementation Science

Men’s health equity is an area of men’s health research and practice that combines the literature on men’s health with that of health equity. More research is needed that describes how to intervene to promote men’s health equity. This introduction to the American Journal of Men’s Health special collection on promoting men’s health equity was created to feature research that describes aspects of promising interventions that (a) are population-specific approaches that consider the unique biopsychosocial factors that affect the health of socially defined populations of men; or (b) use a comparative approach to close or eliminate gaps between socially defined groups of men and women and among socially meaningful groups of men that are unnecessary, avoidable, considered unfair and unjust, and yet are modifiable. The dozen papers from across the globe included in the special collection are grouped in three areas: conceptual approaches and reviews; formative research; and evaluation findings. The papers represent a diverse array of populations under the umbrella of men’s health and a range of strategies to improve men’s health from tobacco cessation to microfinance. The collection features a range of alternative masculinities that emerge from original research by the contributors that are used in novel ways in the interventions. This editorial argues that more qualitative research is needed to evaluate the intended and unintended findings from interventions. This editorial also highlights the benefits that men’s health equity can gain from embracing dissemination and implementation science as a tool to systematically design, implement, refine, and sustain interventions.

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