Why don’t men talk to doctors?

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By Deirdre Cox Baker | Thursday, September 25, 2008 3:03 PM CDT | () comments

When it comes to health, women do better than men in almost every category measured by experts.

More men smoke and are overweight; fully 80 percent of men die from 10 basic health problems, including heart disease, cancer and accidents.

Troubling numbers, courtesy of the National Center for Health Statistics in Atlanta:

n Life expectancy — Men, 74.8 years; women, 80.1 years.

nNumber of visits to physicians — 403.2 million men; 560.4 million women.

n Number of hospital outpatient visits — 40.3 million men; 62 million women.

It’s unknown why these differences exist, but experts have several ideas. Anthony Rodriguez, clinical director of The Men’s Center, Davenport, thinks male self-perception, culture, media and women all play a role.

“It is very difficult to admit flaws in this environment,” said Rodriguez, a clinical social worker who founded the center in 2004. Men are called to be “steadfast and virile,” and just how men see themselves is magnified by the women in their lives. Men often simply do not have the vocabulary to communicate their problems, he added.

Men generally don’t seek out health care until they are quite sick, agreed Tina Harper, a social worker from Genesis Medical Center, Illini campus, Silvis. “They work and fear loss of income, they feel they can tough it out,” she said.

Sometimes, men are caring for a spouse, and they feel extra need to be the family’s sole support. “They last thing they want to do is to be seen as weak, whiney or sick,” Harper said.

Erectile dysfunction

One example Rodriguez sees concerns erectile dysfunction. This occurs in males of all ages, but men are reluctant to go to a urologist about it. Once they finally do, he said, they find out they may have some underlying problem that is simple to fix.

“They have a sense of self as a warrior, and something less than that means some sort of damaged goods,” he said.

Len Dawson, a former NFL quarterback, was 56 when his wife urged him to get a prostate test, according to a story in the online magazine, momlogic.com.

Dawson refused, but his wife went ahead and made the appointment and told him that if he didn’t want to go, he’d have to cancel it. He went, found out he was in the early stages of prostate cancer and had it successfully treated. Dawson’s elder brother had died of prostate cancer, but it is now curable, especially when found in the early stages.

Risky behavior

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, Atlanta, track numbers that show men are more likely to smoke, drink, use illicit drugs and engage in casual sex than women. All are risk factors for serious disease.

Males have a higher tolerance for risky behavior, which may explain why accidents are one of the leading causes of death for the 146 million men in the United States.

Some 70,532 men died in accidents in 2003, the CDC reports, double the number of women who also died in this manner. There were 13,176 men who died of accidental poisoning in 2003, more than twice the number of women. Drowning caused 2,632 deaths to men, and 674 to women in 2003, the most recent year such numbers are available.

But times may be changing, if only a little. Technology helps, especially in widespread communication of shared problems, Rodriguez said. There is more open discussion of health issues specific to both men and women.

“Men see the world in black and white,” he said. Men are less able to handle stress and become more disturbed when they lose control.

For more information on men’s health, check the CDC Web site at: cdc.gov/lifestages, and click on the “men” logo.

Deirdre Cox Baker can be contacted at (563) 383-2492 or dbaker@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com