1. The Problem
In general, men live silently with health issues and changes for too long before taking medical advice. Women engage with healthcare earlier and more often over their lifespan.
As we age toward and past retirement, we all enter a period of health uncertainty. Most non-gendered condition statistics will show a 60/40 split affecting men, not 50/50. For every two women that die from a condition, three men will also die.
This is not a new or under researched issue at all but it appears that there is a lot of ‘doing what we always do, the way we always do it’, yet expecting a different result.
I feel the use of large budget, interruption-based advertising methods just makes healthcare ads look like all the other invasive large budget advertising. There is no content hierarchy, it all gets ignored. “Talk to the hand…”
Masculinity is a complex and multi-faceted concept; nature plus nurture, psychosocial factors and socioeconomic realities, generational norms and habits. We are taught to be stable, reliable providers, we are the rocks to which generations bind.
We are stability and we instinctively avoid change, we procrastinate, we make do, we mend, we carry on, put up with, grumble, we research, think about and wonder, but we rarely ask for professional advice. This is not because men are are uninformed or do not sense health concerns. It is because of how uncertainty and concerns are managed privately.
Summary
We are surrounded by health messaging, ‘Social Marketing’ as a non-commercial message delivered through the same ubiquitous channels as toothpaste and car insurance. The standard “campaign voice” prevalent in Social Marketing commoditises older people, reminds them of their loss of function and feels manipulative. It is not surprise that demand resistance is triggered.
For those from ‘analogue’ generations, the adaptation to new technologies has normally been a constant challenge to keep pace. New ideas and unfamiliar technologies coming from the ongoing implementation of digital healthcare add friction at exactly the wrong moment.
The truth however is that men are acutely aware of their declining vitality and health, their mortality is in ever sharpening focus especially post retirement. Already reeling from a paradigm shift; adverts turn from cars and holidays to where stairlifts, Polydent and Caremark fill your media sphere. Funeral plans ‘Spare your family the burden of your funeral costs’ whilst cruise temptations serve to separate you from your children’s inheritance. Everybody wants a slice your dwindling lifetime resource pool, be that money or attention.
Overriding this all is a growing sense of loss. A loss of work-purpose, loss of autonomy, loss of financial capacity, loss of peers or partner, often times a loss of physical ability and function and a fear of disappearing into a health system from which they never return home.
The opportunity being addressed here is between a person’s private noticing of changes in their body and their public action in response. In my own case it was several weeks before I sought medical input and ONLY after my friends had been nagging me. I was very fortunate
28% of less survivable cancers are diagnosed at stage 1 or 2, a stark contrast to the all-cancer average of 54%.
40% of diagnoses of less survivable cancers occur in the Emergency Room
In the case of many diseases, a matter of weeks, even days, can be the difference between a curative treatment option being available or not.
Checkmate invites friends to raise an antenna, develop some radar about their buddy’s health. listen out for repeat mentions of the same issues.
Health talk may appear in banter, complaints, or quiet withdrawal, but it rarely becomes a timely check-up unless a trusted peer marks it as a pattern.
- Delay Drivers: ambiguity, “I’ll work around it”, “paint over” mode, and fierce protection of already fading independence.
- Backfire risks: command tone resistance, slick = sales, and moralising language can provoke avoidance.
- Channel mismatch: “Talk to the Hand” – TV, Radio and Print media ads for toothpaste, holidays and health promotion are indistinguishable. Transmission of concern happens in private chats between friends
- Network blind spot: small ties (dyads/triads) often shape whether action happens at all. Your buddy has your back, literally
Checkmate equips friends to notice sustained change and send a low-pressure nudge that feels normal, not intrusive.
Chat with your besties, ask them to keep an eye on you and explain that you will be looking out for them.