A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Men do not live as long as women. Life expectancy for an American man is almost 76, compared with 81 for a woman. Deaths among both older and younger men contribute to those numbers, so would greater attention to men's health make a difference? Ashley Milne-Tyte has this report.
ASHLEY MILNE-TYTE: Some of you may be thinking, hang on, women's health has been sidelined for years. Right up until the last few decades, most clinical studies were carried out on men. Derek Griffith knows that. He's a professor of health equity and population health at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, he says...
DEREK GRIFFITH: It's not a zero-sum game. We can promote women's equality, equity, opportunities while actually focusing on the health and well-being of men.
MILNE-TYTE: Griffith is alarmed that the longevity gap between men and women in the U.S. has widened in the last couple of decades. He says more research is needed into why. Of the 15 leading causes of death, from cancer and heart disease to accidents and suicide, he says men fare worse in nearly all of them. And they're not the only ones affected.
GRIFFITH: If men struggle in terms of their health, their well-being and so forth, that tends to put not just a burden on those men but on the women in their lives.
MILNE-TYTE: So he says for everyone's sake, there should be more emphasis nationally on the factors that affect men's physical and mental health. There are some men's health centers in the U.S., although several focus solely on sexual health. The Preston Robert Tisch Center for Men's Health in New York City offers comprehensive care. Dr. Steven Lamm directs the center. He says they aim to make things convenient for men, who generally don't want to spend a lot of time at the doctor.
STEVEN LAMM: Patient has a knee sprain? Get the X-ray right here. You think that they may have a clot in their leg? Get the ultrasound.
MILNE-TYTE: He says traditionally, men haven't gone to the doctor as often as women.
LAMM: You know, they were always told to suck it up. And so, unfortunately, rather than seeking preventive care, they waited until something was broken.
MILNE-TYTE: Today, he's seeing more young men for checkups than he ever has, which gives him hope for their future health. Still, he says, for many guys under economic stress...
LAMM: Their health is not their priority. They don't have time to take care of themselves. They're not going to address their weight. They're just struggling to pay the bills.
MILNE-TYTE: And for a lot of men, thinking about their health - especially if something's wrong - is uncomfortable. Jack Rainer of Tryon, North Carolina, is 70 now but says when he was young...
JACK RAINER: I read Superman comic books, and we learned how the man of steel could do all things. And so that is, in many ways, how I learned psychologically about what it meant to be masculine.
MILNE-TYTE: He was shocked to discover, a couple of years ago, that he had an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Part of the treatment involved removing testosterone from his body, and the effects caught him off guard.
RAINER: Removal of the sense of masculinity left me without what I called gumption.
MILNE-TYTE: He felt vulnerable in a way he never had before. A widower, Rainer says friends helped him get through the treatment. Today, he's cancer-free. But he says he has to accept that he's not as vibrant as he was at 40, and that's hard.
RAINER: I am very much in the process of considering what it means to be 70, reasonably healthy, and how I want to be living into the next iteration of the journey.
MILNE-TYTE: He says being at this stage of life feels like stepping into the unknown.
For NPR News, I'm Ashley Milne-Tyte.
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