2023-10-04 14:17:58
In 2003, Australians launched an operation 100% dedicated to men’s health: the Movember movement. Throughout the month of November, men’s health and its issues are highlighted to raise awareness and mobilize as many people as possible. 20 years following its creation, Movember remains an essential operation for men’s health, like the Pink October operation for women.
Movember, 100% dedicated to men’s health
Operation Movember chose a specifically masculine symbol: the moustache. The Australian designers of this operation aimed to mobilize and raise awareness of specifically male pathologies and specific health issues among men. They chose three main axes for the movement:
Prostate cancer and testicular cancer are by definition exclusively male pathologies. Prostate cancer is the leading male cancer in France, with nearly 60,000 new cases in 2018, and the third cause of cancer death in France, with more than 8,000 deaths in 2018. Testicular cancer is rarer, but often affects younger men. It is moreover the most common cancer in men aged 15 to 45. In 2018, nearly 2,800 new cases were diagnosed in France.
Three key areas for men’s health
The third axis, mental health and suicide risk prevention, is not specifically male, but men remain more affected than women. In fact, they are three times more likely to commit suicide than women and excess male mortality linked to suicide is found in many countries around the world. Every minute, someone commits suicide in the world..
The Movember movement organizes fundraising for scientific research to advance research on these three men’s health themes, but it also leads corporate actions to open the dialogue on men’s health. These actions aim to pass key messages to men, but also to women and decision-makers and actors. For prostate cancer, early detection is essential to optimize prognosis and response to treatment. In France, screening using a PSA assay (Prostatic Specific Antigen) is available for men aged 50 and over.
Reduce premature male mortality by 25% by 2030
For testicular cancer, there is no organized screening action. It is therefore essential that men know signs to watch for (development of a palpable mass on the testicle, feeling of heaviness in the testicles, discomfort, persistent pain, swelling of the testicle) and consult a healthcare professional if there is the slightest doubt. Here once more, early diagnosis improves the prognosis and therefore the chances of recovery (more than 90% currently).
Faced with the risk of suicide, prevention actions are generally the same for men and women. However, the risk of suicide is much higher among men. A specific approach might prove relevant. The designers of the Movember movement had set themselves the objective of achieving a 25% reduction in premature deaths among men by 2030. In France, premature mortality has been declining since the early 2000s, with a steeper decline in men than in women.
Estelle B., Doctor of Pharmacy
Sources
– “Movember”: the Unicancer network is mobilizing in November once morest prostate and testicular cancers. www.unicancer.fr. Accessed October 3, 2023.
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