BP at the Barbershop

A brilliant idea. If this was adopted by every barbershop in the country, what a difference it would make.

From the NYT...

Barber shops often serve as a pipeline for health information in African-American communities. Now, a study reports a striking success: when barbers checked their male patrons’ blood pressure on every visit, the men were far more likely to see a doctor and get high blood pressure under control.

The study, published on Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine, was conducted at 17 black-owned barber shops in Dallas County, Tex., over the course of two years, ending in 2008.

By the end of the study, more than half of both groups had their blood pressure under control.

An indepth interview with the study's author is here.