GENDER EQUALITY DUTY: 

Publications and other useful gender duty links

Men's Health Forum resources

• Our services leaflet (right) which outlines how the MHF can help you meet your requirements under the Gender Duty'
• Our 2 page policy position statement on the gender duty
• Our Gender Equality Report: What the Gender Duty will mean for the health of men 

• Our A4 poster (this is a high-resolution 2.5Mb download)
• Reports from the Gender Duty conference, November 2006

• Useful background is also available in the 2005 Gender and Health Partnership report, Gender sensitivity: the new public sector duty in healthcare and in the EOC's publications below.

• Gender Duty supplement to The Guardian newspaper (28/03/07) featuring items on men's health and many other areas of life that will be affected by the duty.

• News of Lewisham PCT's men's health work.

Department of Health publications

The Department of Health has published Creating a Gender Equality Scheme: A practical guide for the NHS.

It is aimed at PCT CEs, NHS Trust CEs, SHA CEs, Foundation Trust CEs , Special HA CEs, Directors of HR, NHS Equality Leads, Mental health Trust Ces, Ambulance Service Ces, Heads of Training and Development. In making some important points about the way men access the NHS, Part three — Key areas to consider: Services to the public explicitly mentions the Forum and its research and advises readers to visit this website.

The Department of Health also has a guide for NHS boards, Equality and Human Rights in the NHS.

The Department of Health published its Equality Impact Assessment tool and guidance in November 2008. It is available on their site and includes:

Men between the ages of 16-44 are 50% less likely to visit a GP than women, often leading to late diagnosis. Men are also twice as likely as women to develop and die from the ten most common cancers affecting both sexes. We need to consider how to target services more specifically at men.

Equality and Human Rights Commission publications

Publications on the gender equality duty, along with some of those from the old Equal Opportunities Commission, can be found on the EHRC's website. These include the Code of Practice and the guide for the voluntary sector. 

Other EOC publications that are harder to find on the EHRC's site:

• Gender Agenda. The EOC's final campaign includes sections on men's health. Briefings, reports, a film, posters, postcards, screensavers and web buttons.
• The EOC Working Paper no.51 Gender Statistics: an evaluation is a 166 page compedium of gender-related statistics covering a whole range of areas including health.
• Promoting gender equality in health by Lesley Doyal, Sarah Payne and Ailsa Cameron (School for Policy Studies; University of Bristol) is also useful background.

Other useful links

Why focus on men's health: a case of 'gender duty'? - Dr Gillian Granville looks at the implications for local government when assessing men's health and how 'gender duty' and health scrutiny committees can be mechanisms for increasing men's health outcomes. (from IDeA - the local government ideas and development agency)

NHS Employers has a useful area of its website dedicated to the gender duty.

NHS Sefton produced a men's health plan that helps it meet the requirements of the gender duty by setting out how it will take action to address poor male health in their area. This provides an excellent example of how NHS organisations can set out to address men's health.

If you use this as a template in your work you must credit NHS Sefton.

Peter Baker, chief executive of MHF, said "this is a really good example of gender duty compliance".

Read about an example of Sefton's work from when Jo McCullagh spoke to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Men's Health in October 2008. 

Useful material on specific groups of men

Older Men

Age Concern has produced two useful reports about working with Older Men:

• A Review of Age Concern's Services
• Improving Age Concern's Services

More from Age Concern.

BME Men

The Naz Project London, which provides sexual health and HIV prevention and support services to targeted Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities in the capital, has produced a useful report providing evidence for prioritising sexual health work with boys.

Sexual Health Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviours among Black and Minority Ethnic Youth in London concludes:

'Irrespective of ethnicity, this research supports the need to focus sexual health promotion among young men in particular. To illustrate, the young men in our study, overall, reported a higher proportion of sexual intercourse, and a lower likelihood of using contraception and being sexually competent on the occasion of first ever sexual intercourse.

'In response, the search for innovative strategies to engage young men in sexual health promotion is critical. There is an obvious need to stress the confidentiality of sexual health services and counter the perceptions of embarrassment and fear that were been reported by some young male interviewees.'

More from Naz.