Men are less likely to seek health support than women and typically die younger. Can a new approach in the UK improve outcomes?
On an overcast day last month, Brighton & Hove Albion FC’s men’s team were winning 2-1 against Tottenham Hotspur at a British Premier League football match, when a former insurance broker was invited on to the pitch side to address the tens of thousands of people in the stadium.
Dean Gallagher has been going to Albion matches since 1973. He is also a passionate volunteer for the suicide prevention charity the Samaritans.
Gallagher remembers feeling bewildered as his voice boomed around the venue during the half-time break. But he pressed on to speak about why it’s okay to talk about suicide.
Statistics released this month for England and Wales show that men accounted for around three-quarters of deaths by suicide registered in 2024, a number that’s held steady for years. Among men in their early 50s, the rate is more than twice as high as the national figure.
The moment was one of the events kicking off a drive across the Premier League and its 20 clubs alongside Samaritans to raise awareness of the issue among the millions of British football fans. From this year, 11 of the clubs, including Brighton, are giving fans the opportunity to speak with trained listeners and connect with support on home matchdays.
The 11 clubs are currently piloting the scheme under the League’s ‘Together Against Suicide’ campaign, but “we’re committed to the long-term here”, says Nick Perchard, director of community for the Premier League. He added, “if we have one person that takes advantage of that matchday support, and it leads to them still being here in 12 months’ time when they wouldn’t otherwise have been, then that has to be a success.”
The project is one of a wave of health initiatives across the country trying to reach men where they are, from football clubs to barbershops. They are all working within communities to provide solutions to the same problem: medical services often find it harder to reach men, who tend to die earlier than women, and are disproportionately likely to suffer from risks including certain types of cancer, suicide and premature death from heart disease. The problem is so acute that earlier this year the government announced it would form its first men’s health strategy, to go alongside its ongoing women’s strategy.
The initiatives all underline the importance of using the relationships which men already have around them. Chris Brew-Graves, a researcher based at University College London, has been working on a trial for a new method of screening for prostate cancer, and knew she wanted to make sure she was engaging with Black men, who are twice as likely to have the disease as other men. So her team distributed information posters to be put up in barbershops, hair salons and places of worship.
“If you go to the church and their priest stands up and says, ‘hey, it’s a good idea’, they’re likely to engage,” she says. “It’s a trusted messenger system.”
A man might go into a barbershop every week – how often does he see a GP?
In the south London barbershop Jul’s The Hair Klinik, the decor is black with gold accents, with framed motivational quotes lining the walls, as well as a mental health training certificate. As noughties R&B quietly plays on a TV, Julian Appiah-Koduah asks the men in his chair about their families and how their work is going. The atmosphere is calm, almost hushed.
“That was the plan, to make you feel like you’re at home,” Appiah-Koduah says above the buzz of clippers circling his customer’s head. After 27 years in the business, he knows what matters is “not just the haircut, it’s the relationship.”
Appiah-Koduah is one of several barbers across south London who are now trained to test their customers’ blood pressure. Having high blood pressure, or hypertension, is the leading risk factor for death from heart disease in England. If levels are too high and go untreated, they can lead to heart attacks, strokes and kidney disease, with Black people in the UK facing a particularly high risk of having hypertension. The project was led by London South Bank University (LSBU) and local charity Croydon BME Forum to address the issue.
When kidney nurse and LSBU professor Nicola Thomas saw an article about Los Angeles barbers being trained to spot high blood pressure, she jumped at the chance to start a similar project in south London.
“I believe in this so much,” she says. “We’ve got to go to people – we can’t expect them to come to us in the NHS.” After the first phase of training barbers in taking blood pressure readings, Thomas is now working on the next stages of offering health checks to people with high blood pressure and connecting barbers with community pharmacists.
As a nurse, she had heard a long list of reasons why men hadn’t addressed their blood pressure before damage had been done to their kidneys: they hadn’t known they had high blood pressure; or they’d stopped taking medication due to the side effects; or they’d struggled to get a medical appointment at all.
In Barnsley, a former mining town in Yorkshire, local barber Tony Batty has had his own experience of the impacts of high blood pressure. Around 25 years ago, Batty went to a doctor when his feet started swelling; but when he was told his blood pressure was too high and he needed to take medication, Batty didn’t believe it. Then, as Batty puts it, “my blood pressure caused my kidney to pack in.”
You trust a man to use a razor under your neck so what does it require to go to agree to a quick blood pressure check?
Kaye Mann, who works as public health principal for Barnsley Council, says there are a variety of reasons why some men don’t respond to symptoms until the last moment. “In Barnsley, we’ve got a saying, ‘I’ll be reyt’,” she says. “They’re very stoic and kind of just battle on. They don’t want to be a burden,” she says.
Mann helps run a project, called How’s Thi Ticker? to persuade men to get their blood pressure checked, designing beer mats advertising the service and training “regular Barnsley folk” to take readings and placing them in workplaces, a golf club, and barbershops – one of which was run by Batty. After the Ticker project ran temporarily from his business, Batty brought in the equipment he uses to measure his own blood pressure to check the levels of his customers.
Batty has since recovered after one of his kidneys failed. “One of my best friends came forward, and gave me one of his kidneys, which was a perfect match, so 25 years ago he saved my life,” he says. “So get your blood pressure checked!”
For Desta Pinks, a project manager for the BME Forum who helped organise the south London project, the benefits of training barbers in health interventions are obvious.
“A man might go into a barbershop every week – how often does he see a GP?” says Pinks. “You trust a man to use a razor under your neck,” he says, “so what does it require to go to the next level and agree to a quick blood pressure check?”
Pinks hopes for more information sharing about health issues in barbershops and hair salons up and down the country. “We haven’t even scratched the surface yet,” he says.
Learn more about The Premier League’s online hub for fans affected by suicide or suicidal thoughts
Samaritans provide free emotional support, 24/7, on 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org
Main Image: iStock
