Young Men's Health
Welcome to Young Men’s Health!
Youngmenshealthsite.org (YMH) is a website developed by the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. The purpose of the website is to provide carefully researched health information to teenage boys and young men.
The Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine has a long-standing commitment to providing health information to teen boys, young men, and their parents. Back in 1999, the Adolescent Medicine Division started making health information available on adolescenthealth.com. In 2008, with expert revisions, new web design, and new contributions by our world-class health-care providers, those early pages evolved into the current website.We are also grateful to the staff of the Center for Young Women’s Health (the creators of youngwomenshealth.org), who paved the way in content development, site structure, and design.
The mission of youngmenshealthsite.org is to help young men and their caregivers improve their understanding of health and development, as well as of specific diseases and conditions. We aim to empower young men around the world to take an active role in their health and health care.
Vision
Our vision for youngmenshealthsite.org is to be the best online resource for young men to address their unique health needs.
Values:
- Empowerment
- Equity
- Evidence-based health information
Note: The website does not accept any form of paid advertising and our sponsors do not influence the content of the health guides, except to require that the information is educational and informed by quality research.
We do have a feature on our website called “Ask Us” where you can submit questions anonymously to our staff. We answer 1 question each week, so your question might not be chosen to be answered. We try to select questions that are asked by lots of guys. If you have specific or urgent questions about your health, you should talk to your health care provider.
If you’re feeling depressed or suicidal, talk to a trusted adult, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at: 1-800-273-8255 (USA only), or go to the closest emergency room. Similarly, if you have been physically or sexually abused or are at risk of being hurt or hurting someone physically or psychologically, you should talk to your parent or guardian, your health care provider, or go to the nearest emergency room. Please remember that nothing on this website should be considered medical advice, which can only be given to you by your own health care provider.
All our guides are written and/or reviewed by health care clinicians at Boston Children’s Hospital (ranked #1 by US News and World Report) using first-hand clinical experience, CDC, NIH and other government websites, PubMed literature reviews and Uptodate.com. We consult with clinical specialists and experts to read and edit some health guides as needed.
All of our health guides undergo a rigorous review of evidence-based resources at the time of publication and at subsequent reviews every two years or more frequently if medical guidelines and/or recommendations change.
The following resources are used frequently:
PubMed searches of original literature, with access to full text articles through Countway Library, Harvard Medical School
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc.gov), UpToDate.com, National Institute of Health, and American Academy of Pediatrics for current statistics and guidelines for treatment
Medical textbooks with extensive references such as:
- American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th). Washington, DC.
- Neinstein LS, Katzman DK, Callahan T, Gordon CM, Joffe A, Rickert V (eds). (2015). Adolescent and Young Adult Health Care: A Practical Guide (6th). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.