The nonprofit organization Partnership for Male Youth is led by medical and educational professionals who make this important point: As girls become teenagers, there is typically a transition from a pediatrician being their connection to the health care system to a gynecologist playing that role. For males, however, there is no similar continuity of care.
“On the whole, with the exception of episodic school exams, sports physicals, and visits to the ER, adolescent and young adult males are left outside of our health care system once they leave the pediatrician’s office,” says Dennis Barbour, president and CEO of Partnership for Male Youth. Dennis co-founded PMY with Dr. David Bell, an associate dean at the Columbia University Medical College and a clinician at the Young Men’s Clinic in New York City, where he works with males ages 14 to 35.
Who is concerned about young men’s health?
Partnership for Male Youth is a national nonprofit headquartered in Washington, D.C. Their mission is to work with and on behalf of adolescent and young adult males to optimize their health and ensure that they thrive.
The organization published a report in 2021 titled Missing in Action: A Review of State, Federal and International Sources of Information on Men’s Health. To summarize their findings:
“There is a paucity of policies, programs, and leadership related to young men’s health at the federal and state levels. Little work has been attempted in the area of policy advocacy on behalf of young men’s health.”
PMY recently became one of a growing list of organizations that have formally endorsed legislation here in Washington that would establish the nation’s first state-level commission focused on the well-being of boys, male youth, and men (House Bill 1270). Subscribe here for email updates about that legislative effort and other related stories.
Noah Weatherton, Seattle nurse and PMY board member
Noah Weatherton is a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner in Seattle. He is also on the board of directors of Partnership for Male Youth.
Noah earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree from the University of Washington and then began lecturing part-time at UW’s School of Nursing. For three years he was a program operations specialist with the Doorway Project, part of UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative. He was also a founding member of the Community Action Liberation Medics collective, which provides community health trainings in Seattle and South King County focused on violence prevention, health promotion, and mental health first aid.
PMY’s weekly news roundup
Partnership for Male Youth sends out a weekly news roundup, which we recommend subscribing to. One of their recent emails called attention to our Commission on Boys and Men effort.
They also have a podcast series called Let’s Examine This: Unpacking Young Male Health. One episode featured retired Seattle urologist Richard Pelman speaking with Representative Mary Dye about her Washington State Commission on Boys and Men legislation.
Yet another point of connection between us and PMY is that they list twenty partner organizations on their website. One of those organizations is Let Me Run, a wellness program for boys that we wrote about in our article “Everett Mom Leads ‘Let Me Run’ Program Helping Boys Gain Confidence, Strength“.
We are grateful for Partnership for Male Youth’s endorsement of House Bill 1270. We conclude this piece with a quotation from PMY board chair and co-founder Dr. David Bell:
“More and more people, particularly those involved in sexual and reproductive health, are talking about young men. There is much more interest in engaging them in taking a proactive role in their health, but there aren’t many health care programs that really know how to connect to them. There is no such thing as a young man who won’t open up. It’s just that the place and time need to be right, and the person talking with them should be open and genuinely concerned.”