Men's health emerged as a discrete academic and political concern in the 1990s, largely due to the wide success of Men's Health magazine. A Rodale Inc. publication, Men's Health was founded in 1987 by Mark Bricklin.

A greater understanding of women's health issues had been one of the successes of the feminist movement, a development that drew attention to the fact that while men had dominated most societies in most fields, this did not extend to health and to life expectancy. By 2008, it was still the case that in the vast majority of countries, rich and poor, women could expect to outlive men.