Men’s health awareness: your health check and useful resources

16 November 2022

Men, have you had your ‘Man MOT’ to check your health? What’s going on in your body and your mind?

Men's health week NHS check cartoon

Men's Health Awareness Month (Movember), like Men’s Health Week, is an annual initiative that aims to raise awareness of the biggest health issues facing men. That includes mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer.

With Covid-19 dominating many people’s thoughts about health over the past couple of years, this year’s message is – as with safety – don’t forget about the other stuff!

For example, prostate cancer diagnoses were down 29% between 2019 and 2020 as men weren’t seeing their GPs to start diagnosis, and Macmillan says that around 50,000 people have missed a cancer diagnosis during the pandemic.

The NHS can give you a health check if you’re aged 40 to 74 and have not had a stroke or do not have a pre-existing health condition. This could give you peace of mind that everything is ticking along ok under your bonnet. Or it may make you aware of issues you might need to keep an eye on.

If you can’t access a health check on the NHS, you might want to try your own health check: Men’s Health Forum has come up with a DIY guide with simple tests and quizzes you can do to check how you are. You can also use tools such as its Man MOT guide (view in full on this page) to ask yourself further key questions about your health and set yourself challenges to be healthier.

Below, we’ve linked to a range of resources on our website that can help you understand more about different health issues and where to get further help for them – plus extra links you may find useful.

Mens health week eyesight cartoon