Do you wonder why men in Western societies die before women?
Did you know that men in Western societies die at higher rates than women from all 10 of the leading causes of death?
Do you know that research trying to find out why men die earlier does not include adult men from different backgrounds from across the country?
My name is Dr. James Mahalik and I am a researcher at Boston College examining men's health issues. I am contacting men to ask them to take a 25-30 minute, anonymous, on-line survey. I've designed the study so that you can answer it at any time of the day or night in the privacy of your home or another place by clicking on the url below:
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goal in this study is to learn more about influences on men's health in order to help men live longer and healthier lives. Research on these issues has been criticized for not including adult men from a broad range of backgrounds and ages. So without understanding the experiences of men like you, work on men's health remains very incomplete.
Your participation is entirely anonymous. In the study, you will not be asked to give any identifying information (e.g., name, town, address). Your decision to take part in this study is voluntary. You will not be contacted in any way following your participation in the survey. You will not be asked to buy anything or to sign up for any membership. You are only being asked to complete the on-line survey and nothing else.
Thank you for your willingness to consider participating in this survey. If you have any questions, please contact me at snipped-for-privacy@bc.edu. Also, if you are interested in receiving results from this study, please send me an e-mail to at snipped-for-privacy@bc.edu and ask for a summary of the studies findings when complete (about 1-2 months).
Guess who wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
quoting from an article by the doctor found by using Pubmed. According to a search at for mahalik j, the doctor has published 5 articles in psychology-type journals since 2001. As a biochemist, I have no idea what the quality of this work is. Dr. Mahalik describes himself in the latest article entitled "The role of insecure attachment and gender role stress in predicting controlling behaviors in men who batter" as follows:
James R. Mahalik, Ph.D., completed his doctorate in counseling psychology at the University of Maryland in 1990. He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology at Boston College. His specialty interests include understanding the sources of gender role conformity and how it affects developmental, psychological, and relational well-being for individuals, families, and communities, along with how gender role conformity affects men?s utilization and experiences with psychotherapy.
this looked more-or-less legit, I decided to take the survey. I was surprised at the number of questions dealing with alcohol and tobacco use, and involvement in fights, but most of the rest seemed pretty normal. At the end, this comes up, which I found interesting:
Purpose of the Study
Men in the United States are much less healthy compared to women on almost any indicator. Mortality statistics indicate that men die 5.4 years earlier than women die and have a 43 percent greater age-adjusted death rate than women (Arias, Anderson, Kung, Murphy, & Kochanek, 2003). Men are also more likely than women to have chronic illnesses and suffer them at an earlier age (Verbrugge & Wingard, 1987) dying at higher rates than women from 14 of the 15 leading causes of death except for Alzheimer?s disease (Arias et al., 2003). This pattern is also true for men's health in other Western societies.
Although a number of factors influence health and longevity such as biology and access to health care, many health scientists believe that health risk behaviors are the most important of these factors (e.g., preventive care, diet, substance use, risk-taking, social support). Recent research estimates that 50% of morbidity and mortality are due to behavioral factors (Mokdad, Marks, Stroup, & Gerberding, 2004) with the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (1996) estimating that half of all deaths in any given year could be prevented through changes in personal health behaviors.
A recent review evaluating health risk behaviors determined that men are more likely than women to engage in over 30 health risk behaviors that increase the risk of disease, injury, and death (Courtenay, 2001). These facts suggest that the most obvious explanation for men?s earlier mortality and higher rates of illness and injury is their less healthy lifestyles compared to women (Courtenay, 1998; Lonnquist, Weiss, & Larsen, 1992). A straightforward means to improve men?s health would be to reduce health risk behavior in men. To do so, the first question to be answered is why men engage in more health risk behaviors.
One suggestion is that men who endorse traditional ideas about masculinity tend to adopt poorer health behaviors and have greater health risks than their peers who endorse less traditional ideas. In fact, traditional beliefs about manhood emerged as the strongest predictor of health risk behaviors over time in a national longitudinal study of young men (Pleck, Sonenstein, Ku, & Burbridge, 1996). Illustrating how masculinity may be relevant to men?s health risks, Jean Bonhomme, MD, MPH observed that, "when a boy at age 8 scrapes his knee, he?s told ?big boys don?t cry? .... That teaches him not to listen to what his body is telling him. What?s going to happen when that boy is 50 years old and having chest pain?" (p. 2, Shelton, 2000).
It is also thought that social norms likely influence men?s health behaviors (Addis & Mahalik, 2003; Courtenay, 2000). The implication is that the types of health risk behaviors that men see other men doing are likely to influence men?s own health behaviors. We asked both about perceptions of other men along with women and will explore whether men?s perceptions of others' health behaviors are related to their own health behaviors.
If our hypotheses are supported, we will better understand what types of factors block or promote men?s health behaviors. Our plans are to build on any significant results by designing and evaluating interventions to promote men?s health.
Resources to Learn More About Men?s Health
If you?d like to learn more about men?s health issues, these resources might be of interest to you.
NFL site:
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TV site:
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Health and Human Services:
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site:
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Information
If you have questions about the study, Dr. Mahalik can be contacted by phone at (617) 552-4077 or email at snipped-for-privacy@bc.edu. If at any time you have questions or concerns about your rights as a participant, please contact the Boston College Office for Human Research Participant Protection at (617)
552-4778.
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
I think that other societies of men work themselves to death and don't play like the western men do. Also they all like to fight in wars. Western men are passive.
Couldn't possibly be because men evolved as protectors of the women and children, could it? Naah, can't get any government grants by stating the obvious.
lgb wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.sunsite.dk:
Dr. Mahalik does not have NIH grants (at least not according to CRISP).
Personally, I would be against funding his type of research at a private, religious college. But then, his type of research isn't my favorite at all. A definite prejudice, I do admit.
I don't know if you took a look at his survey, I did. Not the best design I've seen. Many of the questions seemed tailored to fit the answers available, several didn't really fit unless you refused to speak English. He beat the "repeat the question to see if the answer changes" horse to death. I suspect that he came from the "when did you quit beating your wife" school of questioning. If you haven't taken the survey, you might want to, just to see it and skew the results.
I looked through it as well...agree pretty much w/ you, Dave.
There are really only about 5 questions or so and the categorization is, as seems to be the case in almost all surveys I see anymore, poor at best for choices.
I was reminded somewhat of the psychological profiles I used to have to endure for nuclear plant unescorted access... :(
Duane Bozarth wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@swko.dot.net:
Dave and Duane:
I have no intention to try and influence a questionaire like Dr. Mahalik's. I just hope someone publicizes the efforts for what they are - stupid. I'm no fan of psychology like this, and it certainly doesn't enhance the stature of BC. Someone should tell Mahalik's dean mailto: snipped-for-privacy@bc.edu
snipped-for-privacy@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:
A Rachel Krebs is director of IRB at BC.
I sent this to her.
Dear Ms. Krebs:
In the usenet newsgroup rec.woodworking a post by Dr. J. Mahalik solicited participation in a questionaire. Dr. Mahalik posted the following:
Newsgroups: rec.woodworking Subject: men's health From: snipped-for-privacy@bc.edu
Do you wonder why men in Western societies die before women?
Did you know that men in Western societies die at higher rates than women from all 10 of the leading causes of death?
Do you know that research trying to find out why men die earlier does not include adult men from different backgrounds from across the country?
My name is Dr. James Mahalik and I am a researcher at Boston College examining men's health issues. I am contacting men to ask them to take a 25-30 minute, anonymous, on-line survey. I've designed the study so that you can answer it at any time of the day or night in the privacy of your home or another place by clicking on the url below:
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am curious whether this survey has been approved by your IRB, since it engendered quite a bit of discussion in the newsgroup.
I took the survey with a straight face, that should screw it up sufficiently as it is. I don't approve of patently designed "surveys". He obviously has an agenda and is disingenuous about his reasons for running the survey. I also find his choice of distribution channels to be suspicious. I figure that if he is trying to do what I think he is, that my answering honestly will be upsetting enough to his results, deliberately blowing up the results would be fun, but not necessary. Others may not have the same views.
I went through it as well. This survey was definitely designed with a specific answer in mind. That this survey was designed by a purported PhD is appalling. The questions are poorly worded, the selections provided often are not relevant (i.e, in the last year I had a physical fight should be a binary question, not never, rarely, sometimes, always), many of the questions are either ambiguous where they should be specific or are absolute where they should be general, i.e *never*, or *always* don't seem to be the right absolutes in some of the questions.
A second thought is that this survey was not designed to generate *any* research answers but was designed to attempt to alter the behaviors of the people taking the survey and to advertise the life-style modifications advocated in some of the links on the outbrief page.
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