As the world observes International Men’s Health Week 2020, here’s looking at the healthcare challenges that plague 3.9 billion of the world’s population.

International Men’s Health Week is observed every year, in the week that precedes Father’s Day, to focus on issues related to men’s health. This year, from June 15-21, while the world focuses on the many concerns of men fighting the COVID-19 battle, let’s also pay heed to the other healthcare challenges that plague 3.9 billion of the world’s population.

Health is a fundamental aspect of existence for each of the 7.7 billion people populating the planet. Differences in men’s health compared to women’s can be attributed to biological, behavioural, and social factors. Some conditions that affect both men and women, such as cardiovascular diseases, also manifest differently in men.

For starters, life expectancy in males, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), is lower than females.

Data suggests high occurrence rates for most major ailments in men. In 2017, over 36 percent of all men, amounting to over 1.4 billion, suffered from neurological disorders such as stroke, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis. Respiratory infections and tuberculosis affected 1.1 billion, while neoplasms, including benign and malignant tumors, affected 9.18 percent, amounting to over 350 million.

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Matter of mortality

As a consequence of the difference in disease manifestation as well as the approach to detection, diagnosis, and treatment, mortality rates tend to differ in men and women. Most countries – except about a dozen nations in the world – have mortality rates higher in males than in females for cardiovascular diseases (CVD), cancer, diabetes, or chronic respiratory diseases (CRD). Some countries like Russia and Kazakhastan, have recorded the mortality in males to be double that of females.

Habits have a huge role to play in explaining this gap. Smoking and tobacco use are among the key causes of CRD and CVD. Studies show that the percentage of men using tobacco is significantly higher than for women across the world.

‘Women’s diseases’: Do they affect men too?

A report by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) finds that one in five men over the age of 50 will experience an osteoporotic fracture. More importantly though, after attaining a fragility fracture, it is a lot more difficult for men to recover than women. A study estimated that men had a 37 percent mortality rate from hip fractures within the first year of occurrence.

Looking beyond the traditional diseases that affect men, one finds that diseases that are perceived to primarily affect females are health concerns for men too. Osteoporosis is one such disease and is caused by the deficiency of bone tissue in the body, which results in bones becoming ‘porous’, weak, and brittle. Due to its higher prevalence rate in women, and the association of its onset with menopause, it is misconceived to be a ‘woman’s disease’.