Men’s Mental health

Recent research and comments have shown:

In England around 1 in 8 men have a common mental health problem.

While mental illness affects both men and women, the prevalence of mental illness in men is often lower than women:

• Men may be reluctant to seek support for their mental health or disclose mental health problems to loved ones

• Men with mental illness are also less likely to have received mental health treatment than women.
• However, men are more likely to die by suicide than women.

Societal expectations and traditional gender roles:

This is the way in which men and woman have been traditionally expected to behave, and may play a role in mental health. For men, social expectations about how men ‘should’ behave and what masculinity is, often include traits of strength, dominance and control.

While wanting to feel and feeling strong and in control are not inherently negative things, some research suggests that a reliance on these traditional ideals as what it means to be a ‘man’ may negatively impact men’s mental health.