The Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) and the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS) Com­mis­sion are ad­vanc­ing ef­forts to ad­dress health chal­lenges faced by men in the OECS and across the wider Caribbean.

The ini­tia­tive co­in­cides with the ob­ser­vance of Men’s Health Month in June and seeks to pro­mote aware­ness and en­cour­age men to pri­or­i­tize their health.

Health da­ta in­di­cates that men in the re­gion face sig­nif­i­cant health dis­par­i­ties. Ac­cord­ing to the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion's (PA­HO) STEPS sur­vey (2022), on­ly 32 per­cent of men aged 25-64 re­port­ed un­der­go­ing pre­ven­tive check-ups, com­pared to 58 per­cent of women. In Saint Lu­cia, men are 40 per­cent more like­ly to die from car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease than women. In St. Kitts and Nevis, non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases ac­count for 83 per­cent of all deaths, with men ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a 30 per­cent high­er rate of pre­ma­ture mor­tal­i­ty.

PA­HO’s 2020 NCD pro­file for the East­ern Caribbean re­port­ed that stroke mor­tal­i­ty rates in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da were 50 per­cent high­er among men. In Saint Lu­cia, the Min­istry of Health’s 2021 re­port re­vealed that 45 per­cent of men sought med­ical at­ten­tion on­ly when symp­toms were se­vere, com­pared to 28 per­cent of women.

A 2021 CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at study ti­tled Men­tal Health in the Caribbean: A Gen­der Analy­sis found that men in St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines were 3.2 times less like­ly than women to ac­cess psy­chother­a­py. PA­HO’s 2022 Health and Mas­culin­i­ty study showed that 70 per­cent of men in six OECS coun­tries as­so­ci­at­ed seek­ing men­tal health care with a fail­ure to ful­fill mas­cu­line roles.

CARPHA and the OECS are call­ing for tar­get­ed pub­lic health ini­tia­tives to ad­dress these dis­par­i­ties. The theme for Men’s Health Month, Clos­ing the Em­pa­thy Gap, en­cour­ages cul­tur­al change through ad­vo­ca­cy and ac­tion.

Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of CARPHA, Dr. Lisa In­dar, stat­ed that ef­forts must fo­cus on pre­ven­tive care and ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion. She said that de­lay­ing med­ical at­ten­tion con­tributes to wors­en­ing health out­comes.

Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al of the OECS Com­mis­sion stat­ed that men’s health must be­come a pri­or­i­ty. He urged men to adopt reg­u­lar check-ups, healthy habits, and ear­ly screen­ings.

CARPHA and the OECS are urg­ing com­mu­ni­ties, health­care providers, and fam­i­lies to sup­port men in ac­cess­ing health­care and to ad­dress the so­cio-cul­tur­al norms that de­ter men from seek­ing time­ly care.