It’s National Men’s Health Week! We’d like to take a few moments to remind all the men in our lives to take care of themselves: Get some exercise, make good food choices, go see your primary care provider for important screenings, wear sunscreen and a helmet when needed, and travel safely (among many other steps to healthy living). Here are a few items from the NIDILRR community and elsewhere for the guys in our lives (with and without disabilities) to help them be healthy:

Get important screenings

• Teach yourself and others about the importance of health screenings by putting on an inclusive health fair with this guide from the Center on Psychiatric Disabilities and Co-occurring Medical Conditions.
• For men with spinal cord injury, maintaining good bowel and bladder health can be a challenge. See these two factsheets on bowel management and bladder management after spinal cord injury (SCI) from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center (MSKTC) and talk to your provider about screenings for bowel and bladder cancer.
• Learn about strategies for developing and maintaining a good relationship with your primary care provider in our Research In Focus article.

Get a little exercise

• Find an accessible fitness center or exercise class or add your class or fitness center to the list of Activity Inclusion Mapping System from the Rehab Engineering Research Center on Interactive Exercise Technology and Exercise Physiologies for People with Disabilities.
• You can also use their AIM-FREE system to evaluate the accessibility of your local fitness center.

Eat something healthy

• Cook up something tasty from the Disability FEAST cookbook developed by the World Institute on Disability under a NIDILRR field initiated grant.

Spend quality time with the family

• Leisure time with the family is important to mental health and physical health. Check out information and a family leisure toolkit from the RRTC on Community Living and Participation of Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities.

Talk about sexual health

A healthy sex life is important to overall health. Talking about sex, either with your partner or your healthcare provider, can be a challenge. Here are a few resources to help:

• Sexuality and sexual functioning after SCI factsheet from MSKTC
• Sexuality after traumatic brain injury factsheet from MSKTC
• SCI Forum videos on sexuality, fertility, and family planning from the Northwest Regional SCI Model System Center
• Impact: Sexuality and People with Intellectual, Developmental, or Other Disabilities from the RTC on Community Living

These are just a few tools you can use to improve your health. If you’re interested in research in the areas of health screening and health promotion for men, see what we have in our collection from the NIDILRR community and other sources available through our document delivery service!