By: Brittani Steward, Coordinator of the Million Hearts Program, BCHD

Did you know that almost twice as many men as women die of cardiovascular disease complications? Or that in general men don’t live as long as women do? High school males are more likely than females to smoke cigarettes, and of the 87.3 million Americans with pre-diabetes, almost 60 percent of them are men. Men of Baltimore, it’s time to start being more aware of your health so you can live longer and healthier lives!

It’s never too early or too late to start taking steps to improve your health, and what better time to start than right now, in June, which is designated as Men’s Health Month.  It’s a great time to think about raising awareness and the importance of early detection of preventable health problems among men of all ages. This week (June 15 – 21) is also recognized as Men’s Health Week, and men should take some time to think about making their health a priority.

There are simple things that men can adopt in their daily life that can help them avoid preventable diseases, such as:

• Take daily steps to be healthier and stronger
• Take a bike ride
• Toss a ball
• Eat less salt
• Make healthy food choices and try more fruits and veggies
• Walk instead of driving or taking another form of transportation in order to increase your level of daily physical activity
• Maintaining a healthy weight
• Make and keep routine checkups and screenings

Perhaps most importantly, quit smoking!  Quitting smoking has both immediate and long-term benefits. It improves your health right away and also lowers your risk of heart disease, cancer, lung disease, and other smoking-related illnesses.

Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in men across Baltimore City.

The Baltimore City Health Department’s Million Hearts Intervention program is a partnership with Total Health Care to help identify high-risk hypertensive patients and refer them to community based programs for disease self-managing assistance. Total Health Care assists patients in health education, provides free blood pressure monitors, and completes weekly follow-ups to help monitor their progression.

Another program in Baltimore that focuses on reaching the African American male community is the University of Maryland Medical Center’s (UMMC) Healthy Men program. UMMC has partnered with community churches, the American Heart Association’s Simple Cooking with Heart Kitchen, and the Center for Urban Families to help identify, treat, refer, and educate men on hypertension prevention and disease management. To help encourage patients to monitor their blood pressure, Healthy Men provides every patient with their own blood pressure monitor. The program also has a fulltime community health worker to help link patients to community resources.

Programs such as these and others give Baltimore men the opportunity to live healthier and longer lives.

It’s vital that men of all ages are encouraged to be proactive in improving their daily health and wellness. For the rest of this month and months to come take charge of your health! June may be Men’s Health Month, but let’s make it Men’s Health Year!