Prostate Cancer Canada is running off with the month following October. They are swapping it for Movember, and focussing our awareness on men’s health initiatives. With that in mind, the PR firm that is helping them in this effort supplies an information sheet with some of those wonderfully scary statistics that we all love to read, and hate to be.

Occurrences of prostate cancer in men is comparable to the rates of breast cancer in women; 1 in 7 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime; 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime; men of African or Caribbean descent are 65 per cent more likely to develop prostate cancer than Caucasian men.

There is an unfortunate, and unexpected, fact underlying these stats: you’ve probably heard about breast cancer checkups, but how often do you hear about prostate cancer checkups? Women have addressed and organized a response to their major health concern of the late 20th century, and men have fallen behind. As the information above mentions, prostate cancer claims a comparable number of victims to breast cancer, but it is a hidden disease. We (men) don’t talk about it, we don’t have it monitored, and so like other cancers, we become victims. Jack Layton was unfortunately, simply a reflection of a general men’s cancer statistical trend. And he would have been a perfect Movember poster boy, with his infamous mustache.

Let’s be honest, man to man: have you ever even said the words "prostate cancer", to anyone, let alone another man? We thought not.

Movember was begun in Melbourne by a group of beer drinking men looking for a cause, and believing, more importantly, that "it was time to bring back the moustache."

In order to justify their "Mo" (Aussie slang for moustache), the astonishingly successful Movember Movement was started. And despite these humble roots in 2003, "this November will mark the 5th Movember campaign in Canada, which will continue to raise funds for Prostate Cancer Canada. In 2010, almost 119,000 Mo Bros and Mo Sistas used the power of the Mo to raise $22 million for our beneficiary partner... The funds raised are directed to programs run directly by Movember and our men’s health partner, Prostate Cancer Canada."

As an internet-focussed campaign, Movember is both a lot viral and a little irreverent. Whether you’re picking up Mo grooming tips, checking out the ‘Moscars’ (videos by participants celebrating, bemoaning, or fantasizing about their Mos), or registering online as an individual, a team or a company, it’s no surprise that so far 1.1 Million Mo Bros and Mo Sistas have agreed to participate.  Formal campaigns have cropped up in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, the UK, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa and Ireland.

"Movember believes that a moustache crafted with pride is a sign of (a) true gentleman."  Let the Mo-ing (and the conversations) begin.