A Turning Point for Men’s Health Policy in North America?
In the last few months, we’ve seen some hopeful moves on men’s health in North America. These changes don’t just matter for boys and men—they matter for the families and communities around them.
In Canada, the Government of Canada has launched #HealthyMen. It’s a national conversation that will help build the country’s first Men and Boys’ Health Strategy. In the United States, a new State of Men’s Health Act has been put forward in Congress. It would create a clear federal home for work on men’s health.
For those of us who have been watching this area for a long time, it feels like a positive step forward.
Canada listens first
Canada’s approach starts with listening.
Through a national questionnaire and short written briefs, men and boys—and the people who care about them—are being asked to share their experiences and ideas on four big themes:
How traditional ideas about masculinity help or harm
What supports healthy relationships and everyday habits
What makes it easier (or harder) to seek help for mental health and substance use
How key life stages—adolescence, fatherhood, midlife, retirement—shape wellbeing
This isn’t just a campaign; it’s the first step in designing a full national strategy, built from evidence and lived experience. That’s a significant shift.
Learn more about Canda’s approach.
The U.S.: two decades of bills, no votes—so far
In the U.S., the new State of Men’s Health Act builds on a much longer, more frustrating story.
A look at federal legislative history since 2000 shows at least 15 separate men’s health bills introduced in Congress: various versions of the Men’s Health Act, an Office of Men’s Health Act, the Men and Families Health Care Act, and more recent Men’s Health Awareness and Improvement Acts. Every one of them died without ever receiving a vote.
So this moment is not the first time Congress has recognized that American men face higher rates of premature death, suicide, overdose, and chronic disease. It is one of the first times that recognition is paired with:
A contemporary, data-rich picture of men’s lives (e.g., the State of American Men 2025 report)
A parallel push in another major North American country to develop a full national strategy
A growing international field of men’s health policy to draw from
That combination makes this new bill feel less like another one-off and more like part of a broader policy realignment—if, and it’s a big if, advocates can finally push something over the line.
Blueprints are emerging
Taken together, Canada’s strategy process and the U.S. bill sit alongside a set of important “blueprints” that didn’t exist twenty years ago:
Relevant reports:
They don’t all look the same, but they share a lot in common. Across them you see the same themes: shorter male life expectancy, higher rates of suicide and overdose, lower use of primary care and prevention, rising loneliness and online harms, and the importance of masculinity, work, family, and community in shaping health.
For the first time, we can compare, contrast, and learn systematically from these documents instead of arguing in the abstract about what a men’s health strategy “might” look like.
What comes next
Over the coming months, I’ll be digging into these strategies, bills, and reports with a particular focus on sexual and reproductive health—specifically, how they do (or don’t) integrate men and boys into sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services.
I’m excited to be doing this work in collaboration with colleagues at Global Action on Men’s Health (GAMH), a network that has been pushing for exactly this kind of evidence-driven approach for years.
Finalization of either proposed approach is not guaranteed. Canada’s strategy is still being written. The U.S. bill, like its predecessors, could stall. But taken together, they mark a moment where North America is treating men’s health as a policy field with real infrastructure, not just a collection of frightening statistics.
That’s worth celebrating, advocating for, and watching closely.