- A Utah task force is exploring ways to improve the well-being of men.
- The group aims to address mental health education employment and sense of purpose.
- Task force co-chairs emphasize collaboration not competition between genders for overall thriving.
SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah task force is studying ways to ensure that men and boys in the Beehive State thrive, targeting health, vocation and a sense of purpose. Although the work is in the early stages, the group is convinced that suicide rates, mental health, educational attainment, employment and other factors can all be improved if there's a clear picture of where some males are struggling so they can be helped.
It's not about pitting males and females against each other, according to task force co-chairs Aimee Winder Newton, who directs the governor's Office of Families, and Nic Dunn, vice president of strategy and senior fellow at the Sutherland Institute, a conservative public policy think tank based in Utah.
Rather, it's about acknowledging that women are faring better on some measures like college enrollment and ensuring that everyone can flourish.
"Ultimately our goal is to see everyone in our state thriving — both men and women. Since strong families are such an important part of our state, it's critical that we have both strong mothers and strong fathers," she said.
The issue has been important to Gov. Spencer Cox, Winder Newton said, noting Cox is concerned about data showing that nationally males have been struggling in K-12 education and with workforce participation, among other issues.
"The governor saw the importance of Utah addressing this issue and wanted to look into the Utah data to see what was happening here in the state," Winder Newton told Deseret News.
About a year ago, Sutherland had recently published "The Utah Family Miracle," a report looking at the state's strengths that offered a handful of policy suggestions to "keep Utah families strong and stable." One of them was the formation of a commission to address challenges facing men and boys.
"Since we were both looking at the issue, we decided to join forces," Winder Newton said.
According to the task force mission statement, "The Task Force on the Well-being of Men and Boys exists to find policy and community solutions that help Utah's men and boys lead flourishing lives. Through collaboration with community leaders and evaluation of research and evidence, the task force educates the public and recommends policy solutions to the governor and state Legislature to improve the mental and physical health, enhance the vocational opportunities and strengthen the sense of purpose for Utah's men and boys."
Winder Newton said the focus on "purpose" is broad and includes contributions in family life, work and other societal impacts.
Studying trends both good and bad
Dunn said that Utah is hailed for many positives, including a strong economy, a strong work ethos, a strong education ethic, investment in public education, strong families and strong faith engagement.
"Those things are all important pillars of a thriving, flourishing life," he said, adding that faith, family, community and work are key ingredients that happiness expert Arthur Brooks says are elements of a happiness portfolio. Utah's strength in those areas has made the state a "standout," Dunn said.
But "within that context, there are data trends showing that a concerning number of men are, at times, drifting away from those anchors of a thriving life. In both the work of this task force and data trends, as well as a series of podcast conversations Sutherland has had on a weekly program called 'Defending Ideas' that dives into each of these areas, we see evidence of kind of men pulling back in areas like higher education and labor force participation," Dunn added.
The podcast has included conversations with national and local experts about mental health and community connection and suicide among men, among other topics.
Dunn said that men and women both need to be strong and connected and that the state needs strong families if it's to continue to shine.
"This has been in a sort of information collection mode and still sort of in problem definition, problem articulation and scope. So there's more to come," Dunn said, adding more data will be released over time.
But some facts about how males are doing are already known. While the task force meetings are not open to the public, he said Sutherland and the Office of Families, both separately and within the task force, are hoping to jumpstart some serious conversations about what can be done to address issues so everyone does well.
He expects the task force to find recommendations not only for government action, but also things that religious communities and employers and nonprofits can do.
"It seems pretty clear to me that while public policy can and should play a role in helping to address many of these issues, public policy alone is insufficient to address all of them, because sometimes these are cultural or social issues. They are issues of purpose and meaning for these men who struggle, and that's not always the kind of thing that the government public policy is well-suited to addressing," Dunn said.
Not-so-good news
In June, Dunn on behalf of Sutherland, released a survey report showing that most men in the U.S. are doing OK, but that a not insignificant number are struggling. As Deseret News reported at the time:
- 36% of American men said they weren't sure of their place in society.
- 3 in 10 didn't have someone with whom they felt they could discuss their mental health challenges.
- 1 in 5 believed admitting to such challenges is a sign of weakness.
"That's not most men, but it's a large enough subset of American men who are struggling across key domains of life to be worrisome," Dunn said at the time.
