Metrics details. Gender-transformative health interventions that involve men and boys are gaining global reach, adaptability to specific geographical, population and epidemiological contexts, public endorsement, and conceptual sophistication.
However, the ways in which masculinities are conceptualised and operationalised in theory and practice across these interventions remains unclear. There were no restrictions regarding language, publication date, or geography. Forty-two articles were included in this review. This shows how the concept is adaptable to a range of different intervention contexts. The review further identifies five theoretical approaches, that help operationalise masculinities on an analytical level: feminist framework, affect theory, critical pedagogy, theories of social change, and ecological approaches.
Lastly, this review draws out six levels on which transformation can be observed in the intervention outcomes: relational level, symbolic level, material level, affective level, cognitive-behavioural level, and community-structural level.
The discussion underlines that processes and practices of gender transformation also require engagement with theories of transformation more widely and advocates for theoretical pluralism. Lastly, implications for practice, including preventative, ecological and community-based care models, are drawn out. Gender equity can be understood as the removal of social and economic obstacles to health, thereby giving everyone a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible [ 13 ].
Gender transformative interventions GTIs focus on unequal gendered power relations as one of these obstacles to health and advocate for equitably distributed benefits among all genders [ 44 ]. GTIs go beyond gender-sensitive or gender-responsive approaches that acknowledge and address gendered needs and dynamics but stall at transforming gender norms and attitudes in substantive ways. Specifically, GTIs involving men and boys show increasing global reach, adaptability to specific geographical, population and epidemiological contexts, public endorsement, and conceptual complexity [ 6 , 10 , 14 , 34 , 50 , 51 , 60 , 83 ].
