Men's Health Week

International Men's Health Week is an international week celebrated in several countries to focus on issues facing men's health. International Men's Health Week began at an international level in 2002 when representatives from six men's health organizations around the world met in a meeting organized by Men's Health Network at the 2nd World Congress on Men's Health in Vienna, Austria and resolved to work together to launch International Men's Health Week (IMHW). This meeting followed preliminary discussions in 2001, at the first World Congress on Men's Health, about the need to coordinate awareness periods around the globe.

Observers of Men’s Health Week are sometimes seen wearing a blue ribbon as a symbol of their support for the fight against prostate cancer. However, problems affecting men's health extend far beyond prostate cancer and other commonly recognized men's illnesses. Physicians and men's health activists mark Men's Health Week with awareness campaigns to highlight additional health concerns such as diabetes, osteoporosis, family health, workplace accidents, and men's higher likelihood of suicide or being a victim of homicide.

The European Men's Health Forum returned to Austria in 2005 to create the Vienna Declaration which serves as a plan of action for improving the state of men's health. According to the Society for Men's Health and Gender, the five main points of the Vienna Declaration are:

The aim of IMHW is slightly wider than its domestic equivalent, aiming to increase awareness of general male health issues and to encourage inter- and intra-national institutions to provide better care for health issues affecting men around the world. Some affiliates of IMHW include The Men's Health Forum in England and Wales, Men's Health Society of BC, in British Columbia, Rotary International, the San Maarten Public Health Department in the Netherlands Antilles, the Men's Health Information and Resource Centre in Australia and Men's Health Network in the United States and other countries.

Although IMHW is most widely observed in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the United States, there has been collaboration with reproductive and sexual health programs for men in Central and South America, Africa, and Asia as well.

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