June marks Men’s Health Month and Men’s Mental Health Month. Maryland has nothing new to show for either.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
In February 2025, Governor Wes Moore stood before the General Assembly and made an announcement that was, by his own admission, unusual for an elected Democrat: Maryland men and boys were falling behind, and his administration was going to do something about it.
“On every single indicator we care about,” Moore told the Washingtonian that March, “young men and boys are falling off.”
The data backed him up. Male suicides in Maryland ran at a rate four times higher than female suicides between 2018 and 2023, according to the state’s own Suicide Fatality Review Committee. Of the 599 Marylanders who died by suicide in 2023 — the most recent year with complete state data — men accounted for more than four in five deaths among working-age residents. Nationally, males make up half the population but nearly 80 percent of suicides. The life expectancy gap between American men and women has widened to nearly five years.
Moore directed his entire cabinet to develop targeted solutions and convene around the effort beginning in April 2025. The initiative was formally housed in the Governor’s Office for Children under the banner of the Young Men and Boys Initiative.
Sixteen months later, June has arrived. Maryland has no dedicated men’s health program, no funded mental health initiative aimed at adult men, and nothing that emerged from the 2026 legislative session — which concluded in April — specifically addressing male physical or mental health outcomes.
What the initiative produced
To be fair, the Moore administration did act on its 2025 commitment — just not in ways that translate to health care.
In September 2025, Moore and the philanthropy Arnold Ventures announced $20 million in grants through the Maryland Partnership for Proven Programs, supporting Big Brothers Big Sisters affiliates and community college access programs, with the men and boys initiative as a stated beneficiary. In December 2025, Moore announced a $19 million expansion of the Grow-Your-Own Educators Grant Program, with priority consideration for applicants demonstrating plans to recruit male teachers — who currently make up just 23 percent of Maryland’s teacher workforce. A three-year research partnership with the American Institutes for Research, backed by $6 million in philanthropic funds, was formalized to study and evaluate the initiative’s outcomes.
These are real investments. They are education and workforce pipeline programs. They are not health programs.
The administration’s most recent men’s health-adjacent announcement — from First Lady Dawn Moore in May 2026 — highlighted a Boys & Girls Club partnership that will “implement programs such as the Triple Play strategy, which encourages healthy habits in mind, body, and soul.” The framing is aspirational. The mechanism is afterschool mentorship.
Meanwhile, Moore’s stated ambition on male mental health — increasing the share of male providers, educating clinicians on how male suicidality presents differently than female suicidality — remains a talking point without a funded program attached to it.
The contrast is documented
The absence of men’s health programming is more striking when measured against what the Moore administration has specifically funded or signed for other demographic groups.
Moore signed legislation in 2024 requiring the Maryland Department of Health to develop a three-year public education campaign on prostate, lung, and breast cancer prevention. That mandate exists. No corresponding men’s health access or screening initiative does.
The administration’s FY25 budget allocated over $1.4 billion to mental health and substance use disorder programs statewide — population-wide funding that, by definition, serves men. But population-wide spending is not the same as targeted investment. Maryland has funded a statewide youth mental health consortium, Medicaid access for noncitizen pregnant women, and reproductive health protections. Each of those reflects a deliberate policy choice to address a specific population’s specific needs.
Men — who die by suicide at four times the rate of women, who live nearly five fewer years on average, who are less likely to seek preventive care even when it’s available — have a specific population with specific needs too. The initiative Moore announced exists. A funded, clinical, adult-facing program does not.
The federal benchmark
Congress is moving where Maryland has stalled. In February 2026, Congressman Troy Carter (D-LA) and Congressman Greg Murphy, M.D. (R-NC) introduced the bipartisan State of Men’s Health Act, which would require the Government Accountability Office to study male health disparities and mandate the creation of a federal Office of Men’s Health within the Department of Health and Human Services.
Maryland, which has offices and funded programs dedicated to women’s health, minority health, LGBTQ+ health, and behavioral health equity, has no equivalent infrastructure for men’s health. The Young Men and Boys Initiative does not fill that gap — it targets boys in schools, not men in the healthcare system.
What accountability looks like here
None of this is an argument against the programs Maryland has funded for other groups. Maternal mortality is a documented crisis. Behavioral health access gaps are real across every demographic. The investments Moore has made in youth mental health infrastructure are genuine and meaningful.
The argument is simpler: Moore named men and boys as a priority in February 2025, directed his cabinet to act, and convened an initiative that — after 16 months — has produced education grants and mentorship programs but no health policy.
June is Men’s Health Month. It is also Men’s Mental Health Month. Maryland’s men are dying by suicide at four times the rate of women. They are living five fewer years. They are the majority of overdose deaths, the majority of homicide victims, and the group least likely to access the behavioral health system that Moore has invested over a billion dollars in building.
The initiative exists. The outcomes don’t yet. That gap is the accountability question the administration should answer before July.
Sources: Suicide rate data and the Maryland male-to-female disparity (four times higher, 2018–2023 average) are drawn from the Maryland Department of Health Suicide Fatality Review Committee 2025 Annual Report, published by the Department of Legislative Services Library. The 599 total Maryland suicide deaths in 2023 and the figure that males comprised 80.5 percent of working-age suicide decedents are from the Maryland Department of Health’s November 2025 data brief, “Estimated Suicide Rates by Occupation.” National suicide figures — males make up 50 percent of the population but nearly 80 percent of deaths; the male rate of 22.3 per 100,000 — are from the CDC’s suicide data and statistics page and KFF’s February 2026 analysis of CDC WONDER data. The 4.9-year U.S. life expectancy gap between women and men is from the CDC National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief No. 548, published January 2026. Moore administration initiative details, grant amounts, and program descriptions are drawn from official press releases published by the Office of Governor Wes Moore, including the February 2025 State of the State address, the September 2025 Arnold Ventures grant announcement, and the December 2025 Grow-Your-Own Educators announcement. Moore’s characterization of male indicators — “on every single indicator we care about, young men and boys are falling off” — was reported by the Washingtonian in March 2025. The 2026 legislative session fiscal context is from Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck’s January 2026 session preview. The State of Men’s Health Act (H.R. 7602) details are from the February 2026 press release issued by Congressman Troy Carter’s office. The HB 1293 prostate cancer education mandate is from a June 2024 RadNet press release covering Moore’s signing of the bill.
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