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Osteoporosis is relatively common in men and has a great impact on quality of life. Despite the importance of the subject, there are few studies regarding the prevalence of morphometric vertebral fractures in men and the associated risk factors. To determine the prevalence of morphometric vertebral fractures in elderly men by three different methods and the agreement between them, 234 asymptomatic men aged >60 years (mean age 69.4 ± 6.5 years) were evaluated using lateral thoracolumbar radiograph that were analyzed by two experienced radiologists according to semiquantitative (SQ) Genant and algorithm-based qualitative (ABQ) Jiang methods. A third senior radiologist adjudicated Genant's method. The highest prevalence of fractures in ABQ Jiang and SQ Genant methods were 37.6 and 36.8 %, respectively (both examiner 2). The lowest prevalence rates were 26.5 % in ABQ Jiang method and 5.6 % in SQ Genant (both examiner 1). The prevalence found by the Genant adjudicated was 31.6 %. The agreement between the examiners were 69.2 % in ABQ Jiang method (κ 0.30; 95 % CI 0.17-0.43) and 65.5 % in SQ Genant (κ 0.09; 95 % CI 0.01-0.17). We evaluated skin phototype, waist circumference, hypertension, body mass index (BMI), history of fracture, calcium intake, serum 25 OHD and sun index. After multivariate regression analysis, we found that lower BMI (prevalence ratio = 1.41; p = 0.024; 95 % CI 1.05-2.03) and sun index (prevalence ratio = 1.45; p = 0.049; 95 % CI 1.01-1.95) were independently associated with morphometric vertebral fractures.