The early 1990s were a watershed moment for female health. In 1990, the Office of Research on Women’s Health was founded within the National Institutes of Health to ensure women were included in medical research. A year later, an Office on Women’s Health was established within the Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate research, education, and resources. The Women’s Health Initiative — one of the largest studies of women’s health — was launched. And in 1994, the Food and Drug Administration established its own Office of Women’s Health to test the safety of FDA-approved medications, which until then had no specific requirements for including women in studies.

From increasing uptake of screening mammograms to conducting research that led to the Violence Against Women Act, the impact of these programs on women’s health and wellness is hard to overstate, though disparities in funding and research continue; substantial NIH funding was not specifically allocated to women’s health research until 2024. 

Nobody seems more aware of this than men’s health advocates. “The Office of Women’s Health has done spectacular things for women on so many levels,” said Paul Turek, director of the Turek Clinic and a longtime men’s health advocate. “We’ve got a template to follow that’s been incredibly successful,” said Hossein Sadeghi-Nejad, who directs men’s health and urology at NYU Langone and has been pushing for years for men’s health to get its own office within the HHS. 

This could finally be their moment.

Adm. Brian Christine, an HHS assistant secretary for health, is a urologist and men’s health expert. He has made public comments about his commitment to making male health a priority within the MAHA agenda, including while introducing an expert panel on testosterone therapy late last year. 

Then, in February, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the House, sponsored by Louisiana Democrat Carter Troy and co-sponsored by North Carolina Republican Gregory Murphy. The State of Men’s Health Act, which has been assigned to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, calls for a report on the state of men’s health and the creation of a dedicated office. 

“The biggest thing is to simply get the office established inside Health and Human Services because … they don’t really have a sense of how to address men’s health,” said Ronald Henry, the founder and president of the Men’s Health Network, a nonprofit that helped draft and promote the bill to mandate the federal government “start paying attention to men’s health.”

While similar bills have been introduced in every Congressional session since 2000, the 119th may be the charm. The bill has four sponsors so far, and unlike in the past, they’re evenly split between the parties. Congressional staffers told STAT they are hopeful about the possibility of this bill moving forward. Not only did the American Urological Association work on drafting the measure, the American Medical Association endorsed it for the first time. Adding to the men’s health momentum, the AMA’s president-elect, Willie Underwood, is a urologist and men’s health expert, too. 

“This office would be the captain that would help to steer the boat of men’s health in[to] the next century,” said Turek. “I am deeply excited that this is the time for it.” 

The case for a federal office of men’s health

The quintessential case for an office of men’s health, advocates say, is embodied by the last congressman to introduce it: Donald Payne Jr., a Democrat from New Jersey. In his time in office, he proposed several pieces of legislation around men’s health, including the Men’s Health Awareness and Improvement Act of 2021 and several attempts to institute a national men’s health week. None gained traction.

Payne died in 2024 at the age of 66, due to complications from diabetes — precisely the kind of issue he hoped the office would address. Men represent the majority of diabetes patients in the U.S., and are more likely to die from it as they are from other chronic conditions, including cardiovascular disease. 

With a life expectancy of 75.8 years, American men live on average 5.3 years less than women, and have much shorter lives than their peers in other wealthy nations. They have a higher cancer mortality and die of suicide four times as much as women (who attempt it more often but have less access to guns). Overall, U.S. men’s health is worse than women’s across all socioeconomic and racial groups, and their higher mortality and morbidity is estimated to cost federal and local governments more than $140 billion, and close to $160 billion in private costs. 

“Governments around the world are increasingly recognizing the need for coordinated approaches to improving men’s health outcomes,” said Okey Enyia, a health policy researcher and consultant focusing on health equity. Australia, the U.K., and Ireland have recently passed men’s health initiatives, he said, and Canada is working on it. In the U.S., while only five years ago Payne’s effort was limited to Democratic support, today the attention is bipartisan, reflecting a broader movement. 

Male health is very much in the zeitgeist, and politicians are taking notice. Podcasters and influencers get millions of people to listen to discussions about men’s health, the business of testosterone therapy is booming, looksmaxxers appear to be the people of the year, and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is channeling the newfound centrality of men’s health (and a kind of “man-up” approach to health). At the same time, institutionally, shifts are happening: notably, the American Nurses Association has recently established men’s health as a specialty. 

“This is not about politics, this is about something good for society,” said Sadeghi-Nejad. He was excited about the bipartisan nature of the bill, and heartened to see genuine excitement among congressmen and their staffers. 

“This is the first time where we’ve gotten as much support from some of the big institutional players,” said Henry, the Men’s Health Network president. 

Thinking of men’s health and women’s health as a dichotomy may come instinctively, but proponents of the office strongly reject the idea that increased attention on men’s health would come at the expense of women’s. 

For one, the bill stipulates that funding for men’s health initiatives should not come from resources allocated to women’s health programs and offices. The first priority is to review the resources already available for men’s health programs, said Henry. “It does not require any additional money,” he added. 

From a conceptual standpoint, too, improving men’s health and women’s health “are absolutely critical parts of a comprehensive public health strategy,” said Helen Bernie, the director of men’s sexual and reproductive health at Indiana University and a professor of urology. “Public health isn’t a zero-sum conversation. Women’s health initiatives have made important progress and are currently making important progress, but there are still many gaps there as well,” she said. “But at the same time, men also experience significant disparities in life expectancy and preventive care engagement, so addressing both is ultimately what strengthens the health of families and communities in the U.S.”

Focus on preventive care

Experts differ over their priorities for an office of men’s health, though most agree on the importance of focusing on preventive care. “Many of the conditions that disproportionately affect men, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain cancers, can be prevented or better managed through early detection,” said Enyia. “Yet men are significantly less likely than women to access routine health care.” 

Bernie said the office could “lead national efforts around preventive screenings, cardiovascular risk detection, mental health awareness, and early identification of metabolic disease,” adding that “if we can get men into the health care system earlier and more consistently, then we can dramatically improve outcomes.” Sadeghi-Nejad said he would like to see a focus on disseminating information and education, too. 

Dominick Shattuck, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University and a men’s health fellow at the American Institute for Boys and Men, said the office should work to “facilitate some early entry points into the health system for men … in late adolescence and early adulthood, where a lot of young men kind of get lost to the health system.” He stressed that this should include mental health screenings and initiatives to foster community engagement, with the goal of reducing suicides. 

For Adrian Dobs, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine and oncology at Johns Hopkins University, the first order of business should be studying why men die earlier and get sick more than women. “It’s never really been looked at systematically enough,” she said, noting the need to identify the diagnoses most likely to drive up deaths, and why they affect men more than women. She’d like to see more data to improve understanding of what puts younger men at increased risk of suicide or accidents, and drive programs to reduce their occurrence.

How to evaluate the accomplishments of a men’s health office is another area of debate. Turek suggested tracking “lives screened” as a measure of awareness and engagement, and “lives saved” as the ultimate measure of successful intervention. Others concurred that in the long run, mortality would provide the most important feedback on whether the office and its programs are effective. 

Enyia, however, cautions that assessments should be done through disaggregated data, both to design policies and measure their success. “Improvements in average outcomes can sometimes mask persistent disparities affecting specific populations,” he said. “Measuring progress across race, socioeconomic status, geography, and other factors helps ensure that improvements in men’s health are broadly shared.”

This push to give men’s health a dedicated office comes as the Trump administration is putting significant effort into establishing gender as binary, and seeking to end opportunities for gender-affirming health for trans people. During his swearing-in ceremony, Christine discussed his own gender identity to make the point that his leadership would differ from his predecessor’s, Rachel Levine, a trans woman. “I submit to you today that there is no more visible sign of that change than this. I stand before you a man in a man’s uniform,” he said.

Experts STAT spoke with said it would be important for the office to be inclusive, while cautioning against letting this issue detract from the fundamental goals of the office. Further, many noted the need for specific research to identify the health needs of trans men.

While there are differences in what they would prioritize, how they would proceed, and how they would assess progress, the experts agree that the first order of business is getting the office established, and caution against pursuing narrow interests as something that could delay a goal that finally seems within reach. 

It’s important “that we pay attention to avoid division and fragmentation,” said Sadeghi-Nejad, “so that we work together and we coordinate our efforts.”

STAT’s coverage of health challenges facing men and boys is supported by Rise Together, a donor advised fund sponsored and administered by National Philanthropic Trust and established by Richard Reeves, founding president of the American Institute for Boys and Men; and by the Boston Foundation. Our financial supporters are not involved in any decisions about our journalism.