THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE – As soon as I stepped off the elevator at the Cutler Center for Men earlier this summer, I was greeted by a smiling woman with short gray hair in an athletic half-zip top, standing in front of a sign that read, “Welcome Guys.”
Past check-in, there were pool tables and foosball tables and two giant-screen televisions showing replays from the N.B.A. finals between the Thunder and the Pacers.
A small cafe, decorated with vintage album covers and a classic arcade game, offered flavored water and coffee.
At the far end, in what staff members referred to as a Zen corner, with a wall of living moss, nature scenes were displayed on a screen while soft, calming music drifted in.
The entire waiting area, encased in glass, looked out over a football field where athletes were going through physical-therapy sessions.
The place was friendly and inviting, but every detail also served a more profound purpose. The Cutler Center is one of the few clinical spaces trying to tackle the stubborn problem of men’s lack of engagement with America’s health care system.
The center, which opened its flagship location two years ago at University Hospitals outside Cleveland, has been designed in ways large and small to make men feel welcome — like they’re “a part of ‘Cheers,’” as Lee Ponsky, the chair of urology at University Hospitals and the center’s founder, puts it.
The idea of devoting any extra attention to men’s health can seem “counterintuitive,” Derek M. Griffith, a health-policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading expert on men’s health disparities, acknowledges.
“Men are advantaged in so many areas of society. It’s natural to ask, ‘How much should we care that your health is still poor?’” …
