Second expert meeting on men’s health in the WHO European Region is taking place in Almaty

Within meeting over 25 experts from Europe and Central Asia will discuss the Draft strategy on the health and well-being of men in the WHO European Region. Leading experts in the area of men’s health along with partners from selected WHO collaborating centres, nongovernmental organization, United Nation agencies and the academic institutions will advise and support WHO Regional Office in finalizing the strategy, identifying challenges and opportunities for its improvements.

The strategy is quite practical, but in the same time is ambitious, as it speaks not only about traditional topics such as cardiovascular diseases, but also affects rectal cancer, suicide, mental health, the consequences of violence, and opens up for active consideration and involvement of adolescent health issues.

One of the three main objectives of the new strategy is to improve gender equality by transforming structures and policies that engage men in key areas such as self-care, fatherhood, unpaid care, violence prevention, and sexual and reproductive health.

Gennady Roschupkin, ECOM Community Health Systems Coordinator after reviewing the draft highlighted, that it remains important for all WHO documents to clearly divide objectives and indicators for sexual and reproductive health. Sexuality and sexual health include a vast amount of social functions and psychophysical aspects, which are not interrelated with reproduction.

Yuri Yoursky, Human Rights and Legal Issues Officer, represents ECOM at the meeting, where during the discussion on “Gender, masculinities and determinants of health” he will uncover the finding from ECOM’s research on Internal Homophobia in EECA region, uncover the cases of violations of rights to health, collected by partner organizations, as well as bring up some of the best practices on health institutions monitoring.