Public health minister Yvette Cooper has announced that the prevention and inequalities modernisation action team will look at ways of reducing 'the health inequalities which exist between men and women'. At a men's health conference in Birmingham, she also said the new Health Development Agency would look at what measures were most effective in improving men's health, while local agencies would be asked to come up with their own programmes.

Ms Cooper said it was obvious that 'traditional health promotion campaigns' had not been a great success among men, and 'we know the nagging nanny state approach is a complete turn-off'.