Airedale's terriers for men's health

If you're looking for ideas for reaching out to men with health care messages, try the annual report from the Airedale Health of Men Team on their work during 2003. It can be downloaded below.

The team's projects cover between them pretty much everywhere that men gather together: sports and local clubs, shops and gardening and a range of other events and activities all based on working together with people and organisations in the community. There is also an internationally accessible website.

The Airedale team is one partner in a much larger Bradford-wide project which is the biggest of its type in the country. (The smaller and easier to download report for the Bradford project can be downloaded from here.)

'The Airedale Health of Men Team has reached over 3,700 men of all ages across our community during the past year,' said Kevin Ellis the chief execuive of the Airedale PCT .'They have also come up with some interes ing ideas for extending their activities and widening their impact, for example, by training staff in schools, working with small business and setting up an integrated information system with GP surgeries.'

It all adds up to impressive report. 'I am proud of the Airedale Health of Men Team,' said Ellis. 'Their work is an excellent example of what the PCT is here to do - improve people's health and how we want to do it, in partnership with the people of Keighley and the colleagues in our many local organisations.'

Chris Bradley of Health of Men says: 'As you can see from this report we will go anywhere where men congregate to meet with them and find ways in which we can improve their health. We seek to do this in a variety of ways; by increasing their knowledge, carrying out questionnaire based lifestyle assessments or screening for known risk factors or undiagnosed conditions or by simply talking to groups and individuals to try to initiate a process of improved self care through more positive lifestyle choices.

'Indicators from national organisations show that men will discuss their personal concerns given the opportunity in an acceptable setting and manner. For example 'Samaritans' get more calls from men than women. These are the same men about whom it is often said: they don't like to talk about their feelings.'

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