Where Are All the Men? A Qualitative Review of the Barriers, Facilitators, and Recommendations to Older Male Participation in Health Promotion Interventions.

Objective: Older men have lower participation rates than females in health promotion interventions. We conducted a qualitative review of 20 years of existing research across a variety of academic search databases to outline the barriers, facilitators, and recommendations for this imbalance.

Data Source: A systematic search was conducted across Google Scholar, PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Academic Search Premier, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, and Web of Science from dates January 1, 2000 - December 31, 2020.

Study Inclusion And Exclusion Criteria: Abstracts were screened based on: original research, English language, recruitment or participation, health promotion or health program, and male gender.

Data Extraction: Of 1194 initial search results, 383 article abstracts were thoroughly screened for inclusion and 26 articles met inclusion criteria.

Synthesis: Included studies were coded and analyzed using Grounded Theory.

Results: Barriers included masculine gender roles as well as program scope, environment, and gender of the instructors and other participants. Facilitators included creating social groups of older males that participate in a variety of activities together, including hobbies and health promotion, over a long period of time.

Conclusion: Health promotion interventions should involve men in all aspects of program planning and implementation, take into account men's existing relationships and interests to create gender-sensitive programming, and clearly delineate the benefits to participation.