Research conducted at two Montana reproductive-health clinics over the next four years could change the way medical centers across the nation market themselves to men.

Planned Parenthood of Montana is one of five agencies in the country receiving grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to study ways to encourage men to get medical care.

Planned Parenthood clinics in Billings and Missoula will share $1.225 million of the five-year grant, which is already into its first year.

National impact

"The outcome of this project could have an impact nationally," said Jill Baker, education director for Planned Parenthood of Montana.

Billings and Missoula were the only rural sites and the only Planned Parenthood clinics selected for the research, Baker said. Other participating medical centers are in San Diego, San Antonio, Philadelphia and suburban Massachusetts.

In general, men are significantly less likely than women to seek medical care of any kind.

Only 6 percent of patients at Planned Parenthood's Montana clinics are men, even though services for men are offered.

"There are very few men taking care of their reproductive, family planning, health care needs," said Jerry Clark, male-services outreach coordinator for Planned Parenthood in Billings. "For a lot of reasons, in our culture, when it comes to family planning, men think it's the woman's responsibility."

But men can benefit just as much as women do from information about reproductive health, birth control and sexually transmitted infections, Clark said.

And some Planned Parenthood clinics, including the one in the Billings Heights, offer services to men and women that do not relate to reproductive care.

'We're for everyone'

"In Montana, there is a stigma that Planned Parenthood is for women," said Kelly Rossol, manager of Planned Parenthood West in Billings. "We want to get the word out that we're for everyone."

The Billings and Missoula clinics are modeling their male outreach after a Planned Parenthood in Corpus Christi, Texas, that participated in an earlier HHS grant cycle. That clinic increased the portion of its patients that were men from 5 percent to 20 percent and increased its female patient population by 40 percent, Baker said.

The Corpus Christi clinic made some simple changes, such as adding male-oriented reading material to the waiting room and removing stirrups from examination tables when male patients entered exam rooms.

The Billings and Missoula clinics will probably make similar adjustments as well as experiment with marketing campaigns that target men.

The clinics also plan to survey men to see what keeps them from patronizing Planned Parenthood.

"Men are interested," Baker said. "Once you put the conversation out there, men actually have a lot of questions."

Contact Diane Cochran at dcochran@billingsgazette.com or 657-1287.