Within the health research literature there is increasing attention focussed on how the concept of “masculinities” can be employed to understand health and illness and used to inform health care practice and policy. At the same time, valuable critiques of masculinities frameworks have emphasised that there is often, within the published literature, a lack of rigour in defining and using these ideas, a tendency towards rigid and essentialist notions about men and gender but also recognition that some approaches specify masculinities as the “cause” of poor health outcomes for men, women and children. We consider and respond to these important questions and, using examples from empirical studies, make the case that it is important to advance the use of masculinities in men’s health research both as a means to describing the challenges to men’s health and the strengths men draw upon to promote their health and remedy illness. We argue, first of all, that masculinities be operationalised as “configurations of social practice” and understood as part of the dynamic processes involved within the “gender order.” Second, configurations of social practice are diverse, dynamic and hierarchical in terms of the material and representational benefits they bring to men. Third, configurations of social practice are relational and negotiated within institutions and other structures wherein the doing of masculinities and health and illness can be co-constructed, contested and/or constrained. Finally, we suggest some practice implications and applications for further conceptualising masculinities to the field of men’s healt
