Stigma blocks young men from using benefits support: GreenShield

Nearly half of young men who seek mental health support disengage from receiving care before their needs are met.

That finding, from a recent GreenShield study conducted in collaboration with the Mental Health Research of Canada (MHRC), is among several that point to a group benefits system not reaching this population the way it needs to.

"The mental health system that we have in existence is one that's not really designed for young men," said Dr. Khush Amaria, a psychologist at GreenShield.

According to research from GreenShield’s report, 44 per cent of young men identified needing help in the past year but never accessed support. Among those who did seek care, about half disengaged before their needs were addressed. This is what Amaria compares to stopping a course of antibiotics before finishing it.

Additional GreenShield research shows that young men are at elevated risk for substance use and gambling as substitutes for formal care. Amaria noted that gambling risk among men sits at roughly 15 per cent, nearly double the rate in the general population.

Left unmet, those needs don't resolve, underscored Amaria, noting they drive worsening outcomes and, for employers, rising costs through absenteeism, presenteeism, and disability claims.

Stigma remains central to mental health care

Meanwhile, stigma remains the central obstacle, and it runs deeper than many employers assume. Additional research from GreenShield also found that young men are more likely to see asking for help as a sign of weakness and that figure rises to roughly half among newcomer populations. Many never access care at all, and among those who do, nearly half drop out before treatment is complete.

Amaria believes men leave care for specific, traceable reasons, noting roughly 20 per cent disengage because they feel no choice or control over treatment decisions while 18 per cent cite inflexible session scheduling. Moreover, approximately 15 per cent feel the support on offer doesn't match what they actually need.

“These findings tell us that we need to really be rethinking about just generally how we design mental health support. It has to be designed around how young men are actually going to seek help, how they're going to stay engaged in care,” she said.

“Maybe that means thinking differently about our traditional systems. For plan sponsors, who’ve invested in programs like EAP paramedical coverage, they need to be mindful that stigma is still a legitimate issue for this population and that it may be even more important to emphasize things that are table stakes … To be successful, you need to design these programs with young men collaboratively,” added Amaria.

Still, availability alone isn’t enough because if the perception around seeking help doesn't change, services will continue to go unused regardless of how accessible they are. Amaria argues that the framing needs to shift — positioning mental health support as a source of strength rather than an admission of failure.

Peer influence, Amaria notes, carries more weight for this group than official program communications as young men are more likely to take cues from mentors, coaches, or trusted peers than from anything in a benefits guide.

Why early intervention and engagement matters

Early intervention and sustained engagement are inseparable, Amaria suggests, emphasizing one can’t work without the other. While plan sponsors might prefer to treat availability as a finished job, she emphasized how making tools accessible is only the first step. The timing, the messaging, and the clarity around how those tools work all matter just as much.

Moreover, unmet needs lead to worsening health outcomes, and for employers, that translates into higher costs through absenteeism, presenteeism, and disability claims. Amaria argues that the economic case for early, intentional design is easy. If plan sponsors build support with young men in mind from the outset, they stand a better chance of reaching this population before problems deepen, she said.

GreenShield has pursued that approach through its Youth Mental Health Initiative, where the focus has been on co-creating solutions rather than imposing them. Amaria sees a role for benefits providers to do the same. The support doesn't need to be intensive or clinical in nature. What matters is giving young men access to tools that help them build healthy coping strategies while they're still at the early stages of risk.

"If we're able to provide services that allow people to develop healthy coping strategies when they're at risk," Amaria said, "it's going to get them engaged in a system where they see the effort paying off for them."

Whether it's traditional counselling or digital-forward options like iCBT, Amaria emphasized the goal is to reach young men before problems escalate and before they turn to riskier coping strategies.

Working to reduce mental health stigma

Still, Amaria argues that plan sponsors already working to reduce mental health stigma in the workplace need to reframe those efforts around what young men will respond to. That means going directly to the workforce - through anonymous surveys, focus groups, or informal conversations - to understand what employees know about the supports available to them and what they need.

Mentor-led initiatives and visible, peer-driven campaigns are more likely to normalize help-seeking for this population than traditional communications.

When it comes to program design, young men want digital-first tools they can access on their own terms, without having to identify themselves. Plan sponsors who make that clear upfront stand a better chance of cutting through assumptions about what care looks like.

Where do plan sponsors go from here?

The starting point, Amaria suggests, is to begin with how programs are described to the workforce. She believes the language used to promote mental health supports has not been consistently gender informed, and that's a missed opportunity. She underscored that being gender informed doesn't mean prioritizing one group over another but recognizing that different populations may need different approaches, and that language is one of the most accessible levers available.

For example, simply shifting the framing away from clinical jargon and toward messaging centred on improvement, strength, and positive outcomes could change who pays attention, she added.

"Part of the stigma is not even knowing what's out there," Amaria said, adding these changes also don't demand a complete rebuild of existing benefits infrastructure.

“I think these are the types of things plan sponsors can probably do within the scope of what they're already doing," she said. "It's a different way to think about it more than anything else."

Amaria believes men's mental health has been slower to gain traction in benefits design conversations than women's health. Coverage for conditions like menopause accelerated after employers could see the workforce consequences of inaction like women leaving and productivity dropping.

To that end, she draws a parallel for young men, noting that younger workers are more likely to leave positions that don't offer meaningful mental health support, a pattern that mirrors the same dynamic employers learned the hard way in women's health.

"We definitely don't want to leave young men behind now, especially knowing what we know about their needs being unmet," she said.