Global men's health policy

Historically, men, as a population group, have been largely absent at global and national health policy levels (Rovito et al., 2017). It is widely taken for granted that most gender-focused health policy initiatives and gender-mainstreaming (GM) approaches to health are, in reality, really about women’s health. This is despite GM—which can be understood as “a deliberate and systematic approach to integrating a gender perspective into analysis, procedures and policies” per the definition by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (as cited in Hankivsky, 2005, p. 980)—becoming, over the last 15 years, the officially agreed-upon strategy to promote gender equity in health internationally. The approach was adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 and subsequently ratified by the United Nations (UN; Tolhurst et al., 2012).