March 2010, Vol 32, No. 1
Internet

What’s in the web for family physicians — Men’s Health

Alfred KY Tang 鄧權恩

Hong Kong department of health men's health program
http://www.hkmenshealth.com/

The website of the Men’s Health Programme established by the Department of Health aims at promoting the health of men in Hong Kong. It provides useful information concerning various men’s health issues–common health problems facing men, their lifestyle, mindset are available. To gather men’s opinions on different health-related issues so as to structure and enhance future programme, qualitative studies in form of focus groups were conducted in 2006 and the summary report –The General Male Population, is available online at http://www.hkmenshealth.com/text/eng/facts/focusgroupstudy.aspx The report describes how men perceive their own health status; their perceptions and behaviour as related to different health-related issues; and the barriers preventing them from practising healthy lifestyle habits in the corresponding aspects. At the website there are also health risk tests for men for self assessment of drinking, BMI, waist-hip ratio, erectile dysfunction.

HealthInsite
http://www.healthinsite.gov.au/topics/Men_s_Health

HealthInsite, an Australian Government initiative and funded by the Department of Health and Ageing, aims to improve the health of general public by providing easy access to quality information about human health. Its website harbours a wide range of up-to-date information on health and wellbeing. There is a dedicated section on men’s health issues with rich resources of information such as diet and overweight, circumcision, prostate cancer, sexual health, family planning, and mental health.

Movember Foundation
http://ca.movemberfoundation.com/mens-health/

Movember Foundation is an international organization with a current interest on issues relating to men’s health, especially on raising awareness for prostate cancer and depression in men. At their website, there are health educational information prostate cancer and screening of PSA. It hyperlinks to other prostate cancer site such as Prostate Cancer Canada’s website at www.prostatecancer.ca. The intention was to convey the message to those at risk of prostate cancer and encourage them to be tested annually because it is highly curable if detected and treated early. For depression, men should understand it is an illness that they can talk about, and for which they should seek help. The website carries the aim to increase early detection, diagnosis and effective treatment as this will ultimately reduce the number of deaths from prostate cancer and suicide.

WHO gender strategy
http://www.euro.who.int/GEM/areas/20070430_8?language=?language=?language=?language=??Country=TJK

The relative decrease in male life expectancy in some countries drew the attention of WHO on how men’s health may suffer from socioeconomic causes and cultural changes. Strategy was formulated for integrating gender analysis and actions into the work of WHO in 2007. The gender and health programme pursues this goal by creating knowledge and awareness of–and responsibility for–gender among all health professionals and assisting Member States and WHO programmes in addressing gender differences and inequalities in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of health policies and programmes. The webpages in this section of the WHO website outline the strategy and its commitment to highlighting and addressing the impact of gender on men’s health and involving men in achieving gender equity in the WHO programmes or direct support to Member States.

Medbroadcast.com
http://www.medbroadcast.ca/channel_main.asp?channel_id=1002

The website of Medbroadcast.com has a variety of articles, video, animations on a good diversity of health topics. A lot of health information are in multimedia format. The section of men’s health include videos of titles like alcoholism, alopecia, male infertility, benign prostate hyperplasia, andropause, male depression, headache management, stroke and heart disease risk calculator, plus a long list of conditions related to men’s health. It is a good library of resources of patient education on men’s health.

Textbook on Urology
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/liaquatian/uro.pdf

An online textbook of urology in pdf format. Materials are presented in note form and the content of the textbook is searchable with its built-in search engine. Chapters of the textbook ranges from basics of history and physical examination to clinical problems of kidney and ureter, the bladder, prostate and scrotum, to approach on haematuria and infertility. There is also a chapter dedicated to paediatric urology.

American Urological Association: Practice Guidelines
http://www.auanet.org/content/guidelines-and-quality-care/clinical-guidelines.cfm

The section on practice guidelines of the website of American Urological Association harbours a lot of useful and updated guidelines in a number of urological condition related to men’s health. Some examples are “Use of 5α-Reductase Inhibitors for Prostate Cancer Chemoprevention (2008),” “Treatment of prostate cancer (2008),” “Management of Erectile Dysfunction (2005),” “Pharmacological treatment of premature ejaculation (2004)” and “Management of BPH (2003).”


Alfred KY Tang, MBBS (HK), MFM (Monash)
Family Physician in Private Practice

Correspondence to: Dr Alfred KY Tang, Shop 3A, 2/F, Hsin Kuang Shopping Centre, Wong Tai Sin, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.

E-mail: alfredtang@hkma.org