April is National Minority Health Month, making it the perfect time to focus on the often-significant disparities in health and wellbeing that affect racial and ethnic minorities across our country. But it’s important to remember that these inequities exist every single day of the year, not just in April. What do we mean by “disparities”...Continue reading
African Americans could expect to live 14.6 fewer years than white Americans in 1900 but the gap between the lifespan of African American men and white men was slightly smaller at 14.1 years. By 2015, the gap for both sexes had shrunk to 3.4 years, based on Centers for Disease Control statistics, though the gap...
A search in the iPhone app store for “mindfulness-based stress reduction” produces a seemingly endless stream of applications devoted to meditation. But do they work as well as having a live person with whom you can interact on the other side of the screen? A study funded in 2020 by Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute...Continue reading
Living in a rural area doesn’t mean you will be less likely to suffer from mental health problems. It does mean you will be less likely to have easy access to diagnosis and care. Even though rural residents are in poorer health generally than those living elsewhere, they have less access to treatment, partly because...Continue reading
This past year has brought so much uncertainty and hardship to so many people throughout the world due the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of Wednesday, March 10, 2021, there have been roughly 29 million cases and just over 526,000 deaths in the United States of...
In the impoverished communities of the Mississippi Delta, where prostate cancer death rates are more than 28 men per 100,000, residents were leery about the concept of research. Delta residents were deeply concerned about exploitation and feared that participating in cancer research would make them guinea pigs. So Freddie White-Johnson created a community cancer outreach...
Dear Healthy Men: As a wife, daughter, sister, and mother of two boys, I’m surrounded by men. What do I need to know about men’s health? A: I’ve always maintained that men’s health is a women’s issue, since when men are healthier, their partners become healthier too (along with their children and communities). Here are the...Continue reading
February is Heart Health month, a great time to review the symptoms of heart attacks for both men and women. More than a quarter of female deaths are the result of heart disease, which kills more than 300,000 women every year. Heart disease has been women’s number one cause of death for decades, says the...Continue reading
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a double whammy for rural men: Their access to medical care is often difficult because of long distances to travel for treatment, and they are less likely to have access to high-speed internet for telehealth visits. Even before the pandemic, healthcare for rural men had unique challenges. For the approximately...Continue reading
Dear Healthy Men: I’m only 5’7” and over my whole adult life, I feel that it’s been harder for me to date than for my friends who are taller than I am. And lately I’ve started to wonder whether there are any other issues, health included, that might affect short men more than taller guys....Continue reading