Attracting young men to the clinic

For many years, the Youth Health clinic in Umeå mainly reached out to young women. Two men, Erik Rova, Psychologist, and Jonas Jälmbrant, Primary Health Care Nurse, decided to go looking for young men. A project aiming at attracting more young men to visit the youth health clinic drastically increased the number of young men visiting by 300%.

Before the project started, nine out often visitors where young women, whereas today, after only a year, the number of young men visiting the clinic has increased by 300%.

When the Youth Health Centres started up in the 1970s, the aim was foremost to inform about contraception and abortion, so by tradition the focus has been on young women.

Another reason for low interest of young men could be that very few men work in the Youth Health Centre, which gives the impression that it is not a place for men.

So, do the problems or questions of young men or women differ from each other? Jonas Jälmbrant, a nurse, explains that it is rather striking with the similarities between the genders. Young men have similar needs to talk to professional about their body and soul. It is also a matter of gender equality; Erik Rova says:

"It is a matter of gender equality that effects both young women and young men negatively; a young man is excluded from the youth health care and a young woman is left alone with sexual responsibility".

In order to reach out to young men, they have organised theme-days on sexual health in local schools, increased the open hours for young men and emphasised on inviting all ninth grade classes (i.e. 15 years) to the clinic. Both Jälmbrant and Rova hope that this initiative can inspire other local municipalities.