Men are having a health crisis. Why aren’t we paying attention?

Men have a higher mortality rate than women in 13 of the 15 leading causes of death. The largest gaps are found in the two most common causes of death: heart disease and cancer.

Most tragically, men are much more likely to take their own lives. The risk of dying from suicide is four times higher for boys and men than for their female peers. Since 2010, the suicide rate for men younger than 30 has risen by 40 percent and is now higher than for middle-aged men. Each year, about 40,000 men are being lost to suicide, about the same as the number of women who die from breast cancer.

These gender gaps are not set in stone; the life expectancy gap between men and women was just two years until a few decades ago. The fact that they are getting wider should sound an alarm.

The Biden administration has been proactive on women’s health, launching a $100 million initiative on women’s health research, a blueprint for improving maternal health, and a five-year strategic plan on women’s health out of the National Institutes of Health. On Mother’s Day in 2022, a new maternal mental health hotline was created.

These are all important initiatives. There are many health concerns specific to girls and women that demand attention, not least regarding reproductive health. For too long, these were neglected. The problem is not the work being done for the health of women and girls; the problem is the lack of attention to men’s health.

In 2020, the federal government set out its public health goals for 2030. They include 42 goals for children, 29 for women, and 18 for LGBTQ+ people. For men, there are four.

There are 44 preventive health-care interventions (excluding vaccinations) that are fully covered under the Affordable Care Act, a major public health advance of the last decade. Of these, 20 apply to both sexes and 23 apply only to women (including 12 for those who are pregnant). There is only one for men. (In case you’re curious, it is screening for an abdominal aortic aneurysm among men aged 65-75 who are smokers.)

Policymakers were painfully slow to recognize the higher risk to men from covid-19. And the public health crisis represented by male suicide is not on the public health agenda. The demographic groups at most risk of suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are “veterans, people who live in rural areas, sexual and gender minorities, middle-aged adults, people of color, and tribal populations.” Policies and programs are in place to tackle each of these. Good. But the biggest suicide disparity, the four-fold difference in risk between men and women, is not mentioned. Not good.

When men’s rights activists claim that politicians and policymakers don’t care about men’s health, this is the kind of blind spot they point to. But a lack of concern is not the main problem. It is a lack of institutions.

Women’s health is promoted through several official bodies, including offices on women’s health in the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC and the NIH, as well as the White House Gender Policy Council. These public offices help maintain a focus on women’s health issues within the policymaking apparatus. Without similar institutions focused on men’s health, an asymmetry has developed.

One obvious step forward is the creation of a federal office on men’s health, as proposed in a House bill introduced by Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-N.J.), along with 14 co-sponsors. Payne, who died in April at 65 from complications related to diabetes, was also founder and co-chair of the Men’s Health Caucus.

Payne’s bill also charges the assistant secretary for health to study men’s use of health screenings and services and instructs the Government Accountability Office to report on the effectiveness of federal outreach related to men’s health initiatives. The bill, known as the Men’s Health Awareness and Improvement Act, ought to be renamed in Payne’s honor and then passed. President Joe Biden should come out publicly in support.

Gender equality is not a zero-sum game. As Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy says: “I would not choose between my son and my daughter, and I would not accept that as a choice that any of us should make. … We’ve got to do both.”

The value of gender-specific health-care research and policy has been proved by the work of women; it is now time to apply it to men.