Reacción a "Three studies suggest that, although men live shorter lives than women, their health receives little attention in health policies"

This series of articles published in The Lancet analyses, on the one hand, global patterns of morbidity and mortality among men and, on the other, the extent to which health policies have addressed their health. The authors conclude that men exhibit specific patterns of disease and mortality, in which the intersection of various axes of inequality creates particularly vulnerable groups; yet these issues have received little attention in the political sphere.
 
This premise is, however, open to debate. Rather than having been rendered invisible, issues relating to men’s health have traditionally occupied a central place on the scientific and health agenda, precisely because the masculine model has been regarded as the universal norm in the field of health. However, this opens up a possibility that has been little explored to date in gender studies: namely, that a gender-based approach to research and the development of health policies can also benefit men. 

Thus, incorporating a gender perspective into research benefits both men and women, as it enables the identification of those factors derived from the social construction of gender that are associated with poorer health outcomes. In the case of men, this approach would facilitate the development of policies addressing issues such as the commercial determinants of health – that is, the systems through which commercial interests impact people’s health and health equity – or the influence of the ‘manosphere’, issues that are particularly relevant to men’s health.