Missing men's messages: does the reproductive health approach respond to men's sexual health needs

Abstract

After the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, the world has seen a shift in paradigm away from focused family planning programs towards reproductive and sexual health more generally. This article illustrates how the traditional emphasis on women's health and family planning can result in men's sexual health needs being overlooked. The rising concern and need for sexually transmitted infection (STI) control programs has evolved into a biomedical rationale to target men with health services. Planning appropriate health interventions requires more knowledge about how men perceive their sexual health. This paper presents data on male sexual health outcomes from two health intervention studies in South Asia (Orissa, India and rural Bangladesh). The similarities in men's perceptions of sexual health in these studies are discussed. While public sector programmers and health planners may be focusing their attention on the control of STI, men in both studies indicated that their major concerns relate more to matters of psychosexual disorders. The failure of public sector programs to address these issues in men may lead men to continue to seek care for all their sexual health problems including STIs in the unregulated and possibly ineffective private sector. The solution, therefore, lies on the establishment to address the need for fully comprehensive public sector sexual health services for men, just as they are now aiming to be for women