Men’s needs for reproductive health services in two cities in Argentina

In Argentina, RH programs focus mainly on family planning and offer their health services (HS) almost exclusively to women, but there is a growing perception that men’s needs have to be attended to, both for their sake and for the sake of women’s well being.
We present results from a household survey which was carried out among men 25-59 years old in the cities of Rosario and Reconquista, Santa Fe province, Argentina. Given the expectation that rates of use would be low men were asked about where would they seek attention in hypothetical situations of need and about the characteristics those HS should have.
In both cities the majority would resort exclusively to HS, except when seeking contraceptives or when having a sexual dysfunction. The young, the single and the childless would resort less to health services than older men. Interviewees preferred services located in the existing ones, with the majority having no preference for the gender of the provider, suggesting that efforts have to concentrate in strengthening the system rather than in creating new RHS for the male popul. However, other results show that populations from the same country and province may defer in some of their health seeking behaviors with signs of the existence of different ideological climates, showing that research has to be context specific.