Free Heart Health CheckUps

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By Maryn McKenna

For once hard-to-reach African-Americans, heart-smart blood pressure screenings are now as close as the barber's chair.

Lamar Collier, 69, doesn’t advertise much. He doesn’t have to. His Silver Star Barber and Beauty Shop in Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn Historic District has a reputation—low prices, stylish cuts, strong opinions—that gets him as much work as he needs. But every month, the bantamweight Army veteran puts a small sign in his shop window, and customers stream in. Not to get their hair trimmed, but to get their blood pressure checked.        

“We tell people, ‘We’re taking blood pressures today. It’s free.’ That’s pretty much all we have to say to them,” Lamar says. The Silver Star cuts hair, but it’s also on the cutting edge of health care. Each month, volunteers use one of the oldest tricks in the book—peer pressure—to improve the health of a challenging group to reach: African-American men.

Getting the Message Out   
The program that brings Lamar extra customers—called REACH (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health for Wellness)—is the creation of the Association of Black Cardiologists, Inc. (ABC). The 600-member group, founded in 1974 by 17 black doctors, addresses the significant racial gap in heart health. African-Americans have higher rates of hypertension, stroke, diabetes, and obesity than whites regardless of income or educational level, according to annual statistics gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
           
“Our people suffer so much from the ravages of cardiovascular disease,” says B. Waine Kong, Ph.D., ABC’s chief executive officer. “We’re trying to tell people, ‘If you follow some simple principles, you can live 10 more years.’” To make sure its health messages are heard, ABC associates them with cherished features of the black community: food, religion, and fellowship. It sponsors a campaign against secondhand smoke called Not in Mama’s Kitchen and a Bible-based heart-health curriculum called CHOICES (Changing Health Outcomes by Improving Cardiovascular Education and Screenings) that offers blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose tests in churches.
           
And it sends a group of volunteers into barber and beauty shops for REACH, to teach barbers and stylists how to perform screenings and deliver health messages. That way, the information comes from a trusted source, says Gerald DeVaughn, M.D., ABC’s president.
           
“Guys who go to the barbershop regularly have a pretty good relationship with their barber,” DeVaughn says. “They see him every two weeks; they are there for half an hour; they talk.”
           
The approach gets results. Just ask the Silver Star’s monthly helper, Sally Fuller,  who has been keeping tabs on Paul Thomas, a barber at the La Sisters Beauté Palace down the street.
           
When they met a year ago, Paul had a prescription to lower his blood pressure, which was 170/90. Sally’s coaxing and scolding got results: Paul’s numbers dropped to 120/80. “I knew I was supposed to do better, but I didn’t,” he says. “She set me straight.”