'Man Up'
-
Project Leader
Prof Jane Pirkis+61 3 8344 0647
Project Details
In this project, we partnered with Heiress Films to create and evaluate a documentary called Man Up. Man Up follows commercial radio announcer Gus Worland over three episodes as he explores the relationship between masculinity and suicide. He meets everyday men who have been touched by suicide as well as suicide prevention experts. Many of the men Gus meets model positive behaviours, such as talking about personal problems. The show culminates in Gus creating a campaign ad with the tag-line Man Up, Speak Up to raise awareness about the damage caused when men ‘bottle things up’. We conducted a randomised controlled trial (RCT) of Man Up, recruiting over 350 men as participants. Those who viewed Man Up demonstrated significant increases in their help-seeking intentions, whereas those who viewed the control documentary (Test Your Brain) showed no change. We took this as evidence of Man Up being efficacious in increasing the likelihood that men would seek help if they were facing tough times.