STUMP » Articles » Movember Inspiration: My Dad and the Sex Gap in Mortality » 26 November 2021, 11:13

Thanks to all who have donated to my Movember fundraiser so far!

For those unfamiliar, Movember focuses on men’s health concerns in the areas of prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s mental health (particularly around suicide).

My dad, my inspiration

My dad has been a huge inspiration to me in my life in many ways.

Here’s a video:

As I mentioned at the end of the video, my dad told me to be a good animal:

After one particularly bad spate of being a hobbit in my cozy hobbithole, eating my junk food, and consuming a bunch of books, my dad (who had similar proclivities) gave me this advice:

Be a Good Animal.

This advice was about taking care of the physical side of yourself – eat well, get out in the sun, get enough sleep, if you’re exhausted – nap! And realize when you’ve hit your limit.

Being a good animal is also about making sure that animal is being taken care of — guys, get screened for cancer! Movember has some key tips for men’s health, especially info on prostate cancer screening.

The other big item in my video is that there is a large sex gap in mortality rates, especially at many key ages.

Sex gap in mortality

Here are a few graphs I showed in the video. First, because this is my preferred graph, a comparison of death rates from 2018:

As you can see, for all age groups, the death rates for males are higher than for females, and many times appreciably higher.

How that plays out in (calendar year) life expectancies:

You can check out the posts from last year those came from:

Mortality with Meep: Major U.S. Mortality trends 1955-2017

Mortality with Meep: The Sex Gap in COVID and Total Mortality

As noted in the video, the reason for the 5-year life expectancy disparity between men and women is not solely due to prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and suicide in men, but I still think it’s important that Movember concentrate on those particular causes in men’s health.

There are multiple dimensions to the sex gap in mortality, and one needs to start somewhere. I think this is a good place to make a concrete difference.

Movember fundraising

Please donate!

My fundraising page at the Movember site is here: Mary Pat Campbell’s Movember fundraising site.

I also have a facebook fundraiser page, if that’s easier for you: Mary Pat’s facebook fundraiser

Thanks for your support!

Note: I will be doing a Movember post on Tuesday, and it will be on suicide in men, and it will not be happy. You have been warned.