Finian Murray: men's health development officer with the North Eastern Health Board at St Brigid's Complex, Ardee, Co Louth
The role of men's health development officer is mainly strategic. The post was created in February 2002 following recommendations from a research programme called Men Talking, which took place in 2001.
My job involves co-ordinating activities around the issues of men's health. I share administration support with the women's health officer and we work together on some projects.
I start my day at 9.15 a.m. after dropping my children at school and work until about 5.30 p.m. However, because of the nature of my work I also work a lot of evenings.
At the moment I have teamed up with a cancer prevention specialist for a sun safety and farming campaign in association with the Irish Farmers Association (IFA). We attend regular IFA meetings in the evenings.
In order to reach men, health services must be flexible and must bring the health message out to the workplace, sporting venues and other places where men meet naturally.
I start each morning checking mail, email and catching up on correspondence. I do a lot of educational work.
I am involved in interdisciplinary projects and my afternoons are usually spent giving men's health modules to different groups such as health board staff and health decision makers.
Recently I was involved in a six-week course on suicide prevention, and a training for trainers programme.
I also work with a men's health consultation committee, consisting of other health board staff, representatives from outside agencies and people from community groups to produce a men's health action plan. This is now in its final draft stage and should be published at the end of the summer.
I love the variety involved in my job. By its nature I come into contact with different parts of the health service.
Prior to this I worked in community services on a young people at risk programme and so had little contact with hospital and primary care services. On the down side, there is so much that needs to be done it's hard for one person to do it all. I have to prioritise and work on the most essential projects.
Further down the road I would love to see a team involved in men's health in the area.
All the research shows that men's health status is lower than women's. Women live six years longer than men and as they get older men tend to use hospital services much more than women.
Masculinity can have a huge impact on men's health. Men feel that they are expected to be strong and tough and so they tend to wait a long time before they go looking for help.
They tend to tough it out. I often hear doctors say that they could have done much more if a man had come to them earlier. This, of course, has an impact on male morbidity rates.
At the moment I am working on plans to establish well man clinics in the area, which will target men from disadvantaged groups, because apart from the differences in health between men and women there are also differences between men in different socio-economic groups. I am also working with the Royal College of Surgeons to establish a higher diploma/masters in men's health. We hope to launch a men's health website soon.
Men tend not to think about health until something goes wrong.
Work needs to be done to make men go to the doctor sooner and understand how certain changes in their lifestyle can lengthen their life expectancy and improve their quality of life.