Tailoring care for men

Men tend to avoid the doctor's office. Encouraging them to make health care a priority is a topic gaining attention.

Editorial. Feb. 21, 2005.

Seven million American men have not visited a doctor in a decade. It's easy to imagine the comforting notions that contribute to this statistic.

If you don't ask for it, you won't hear bad news. If you feel fine, why ask for trouble? If nothing is broken, don't worry about fixing it.

Often enough, however, something is broken -- and that's the case even if the patient can't recognize the symptoms or would be happier in denial.

It is well documented that men as patients often demonstrate a general avoidance of their primary care physicians. Some physicians, researchers and public health policy experts argue that the disparity in health outcomes between men and women could be linked to the differences in how the sexes interact with the health care system.

Consider the numbers. Life expectancy for men is roughly five years less than that for women -- 74.7 years compared with 79.9 years. This gender gap becomes even greater when racial and ethnic differences are factored in. Black men, for instance, die about 12 years before white women. Additionally, 40% of black men and 37% of Latino men die prematurely, often from strokes. This number is set at 21% for white men.

Overall, men have a higher age-adjusted death rate than women for the 15 leading causes of death in the United States, with the exception of Alzheimer's disease. And death rates attributed to some of these top mortality-causing illnesses are frequently attributed to a lack of regular screening and preventive health care. That's where the trouble with men's health care avoidance becomes evident.