For centuries garden sheds have been men’s refuge from the world; a place to potter around on Sunday mornings, doing the crossword, painting a bird house; doing, you know, ‘stuff’. However, now it seems that sheds have become the thing that new public health initiatives directed at retirement age men are coalescing around.

In 2011 the European commission published a report on the failings of European countries to effectively engage working males into utilizing healthcare resources especially in terms of preventative medicine. According to their findings, 42% of men die before reaching their life expectancy vs. 24% of women. The report suggests that almost 50% of men’s premature deaths are from preventable causes that are otherwise left too late.

Part of the report’s recommendation is that initiatives advocating for men’s health is imperative, as is engaging men to specifically seek out preventative care.

Meanwhile in Australia, communities have been coming together to provide dedicated shed space for men who are otherwise both without a shed of their own and out of employment (usually retired). In 2007, the Australian Men’s Shed Association was created to act as both centralized governing body and as a means for distributing information on best-practices to the growing number of independent shed groups throughout Australia. The AMSA has since become an advocate for men’s health issues—though principally surrounding issues that affect older men such as social isolation, substance abuse and depression, the AMSA also promotes public discourse on male specific physical maladies. Since then the organization has swelled to 45,000 members and along with its own website, is a cosponsor of www.theshedonline.org.au that acts as an online advocate for men’s issues.

More recently similar initiatives have been started in Britain and Ireland. In November of 2010, the Irish Men’s Shed association was started as a way to help combat social isolation in retirement age men. Currently, the Irish Men’s Shed Association and the AMSA are in the process of building partnerships between sheds for the purposes of global advocacy and cultural exchange. At the end of September 2011, Age UK started a pilot program to facilitate the development of men’s sheds around England and is set to run till April 2012 where wider application will be determined on the success of the progam.