What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

• Position: Sexual Health Care

Compared with women, American males have worse access to reproductive and sexual health care, research shows, a disparity fueled in part by the lack of a set of standard clinical guidelines on the types and timing of exams, tests, and treatments that should be offered to all men of reproductive age. Now a report, developed jointly by Johns Hopkins University specialists and the federally funded Male Training Center for Family Planning and Reproductive Health, aims to fill that need.

The report is designed for primary care clinicians, male health specialists, and health officials, and outlines steps to fix the problem. Among other recommendations, the document enumerates the reproductive and sexual health screening tests, exams, and interventions that all men should receive regularly. It also offers guidance to clinicians on how to discuss reproductive and sexual health issues, including ways to prevent unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.

"Many clinicians forgo delivering these critical services because of a lack of uniform guidelines, confusion about the benefits of certain tests, or merely because men's sexual or reproductive health is not on a physician's radar," says Arik Marcell, an adolescent medicine specialist at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. "We hope this document will lay the foundation for improving access to care and help us close, or at least narrow, the gender gap in reproductive health."

Improving men's sexual health also should help sustain recent gains in women's reproductive health. "Over the last decade, women's access to reproductive and sexual health services has improved by leaps and bounds. This is a laudable achievement, but only half the battle," relates Anne Rompalo, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. "Our next step should be ensuring that American men have equal access to such critical services because population-wide benefits can only be sustained if both men and women receive equal attention to sexually transmitted diseases and reproductive health problems."

Specifically, the report recommends that clinicians provide the following services to reproductive-age males, including teens, at least annually:

* A comprehensive clinical history and exam that include screening for mental disorders, depression, and alcohol and drug use.

* Discussion of a patient's desire to have a family and development of an individualized plan reflecting...