Efficacy of a barbershop-based intervention to improve the treatment and control of hypertension in african american men

Cutting cardiovascular risk in barbershops

“…The literature on conducting CVD screening in barbershops is scarce, and, to date, there are no randomized controlled trials demonstrating impacts on health outcomes. Of note, Hess et al found that barbers can be effective in actually measuring and monitoring blood pressures among hypertensive clients, while the model we describe employs CHWs to screen and educate clients and deploys barbers primarily as peer educators and role models [13,15]. Further research is needed on barbershop-based interventions with African Americans to evaluate their efficacy and cost effectiveness in detecting and reducing CVD risk.…”

“…There is a growing body of research supporting the value of reaching this population through churches [9,10], but less about another popular place for social connection among the African American male community: the barbershop. To date, limited research on the use of barbershops for reaching African American men with health-related programming is promising, with this setting being used to target programming on human immunodeficiency virus/sexually transmitted diseases (HIV/STDs), nutrition education, cancer screening, and CVD and risk reduction [11][12][13]. In New Orleans, barbers were trained to measure their clients' blood pressures and distribute health education material as part of the Healthy Heart Community Prevention project targeting African Americans in low socioeconomic neighborhoods.…”