Men and health in Africa

Abstract

Various intersecting factors in different contexts shape health, from historical to physical environmental/climatic, political, economic, and cultural. Health is also influenced by gender, which refers to roles and behaviours any society considers appropriate for girls and boys, women and men, and people with non-binary gender identities. As a social category, gender is shaped by an equally broad range of intersecting factors as health. The attention previously given to gender in health has, however, been variable. Medicine, including anatomy and clinical trials, have been criticised for having largely been framed around the male body as the prototype. On the other hand, heath interventions have tended to focus mainly on women and the female body, as women were considered prone to health problems because of their supposedly exclusive reproductive role. Demarcating women from men is undoubtedly critical to allow adequately addressing special health needs of diverse sexes and genders. There is, at the same time, risk of over-extending the dichotomy and, as was the case historically with reproductive health, presuming health for women can be promoted with little attention to or input from men. Acknowledging the challenges inherent in linking two interconnected yet multiplex concepts, this chapter presents an overview of the men-health nexus on the African continent. The chapter highlights some epidemiological features of this nexus drawing on selected disease examples as well as life expectancy profiles, and trails the social construction of this picture for men before concluding with some broad thoughts regarding taking forward work on men and health.