Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #112460

Laura A. Linnan, ScD¹, Veronica L. Carlisle, MPH², Kacey Hanson, MPH², Shrikant I. Bangdiwala, PhD³, Kelly Evenson, PhD⁴, Andrea K. Biddle, MPH, PhD⁵, and Alice Ammerman, DrPH, RD⁶. (1) Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, 310 A Rosenau, CB7440, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, 919/843-8044, linnan@email.unc.edu, (2) Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, CB #7440, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7440, (3) Biostatistics/CSCC, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB# 8030, Suite 203, Bank of America Plaza, 137 E. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-4145, (4) Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Bank of America Plaza, Suite 306, 137 East Franklin St., Chapel Hill, NC 27514, (5) Department of Health Policy and Administration, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB#7411, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7411, (6) Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1700 Airport Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27599

The North Carolina BEAUTY and Health Project is a 4yr RCT in partnership with beauty salons and licensed cosmetologists to test different methods of communicating about cancer prevention with African American customers. We describe results of three different methods (phone, face-to-face visit, and referral) used to recruit 65 beauty salons into the research study. From 1453 licensed salons within a 75 mile radius of Chapel Hill, 100 salons were randomly selected to pilot test the initial recruitment procedure: a phone call to determine salon eligibility (e.g. a non-franchise location, serves at least 75 African American customers) followed by a site visit to the salon. When an eligible owner (and at least one stylist) signed the study agreement form, the salon was enrolled. Salon recruitment yield by phone was 4.1% (13/318); by face-to face visit was 14.4% (32/222); and by referral was 47.6% (20/42). Once salons were enrolled, customers reviewed study requirements, signed an informed consent, and complete the baseline questionnaire. African American customers (n=1298; response rate 70%) were 38.8 years of age, married (44.8%), average annual household income ($25K-$49K), and had at least some college training (37.5%). The majority of customers (57.6%) report visiting the salon every 2-4 weeks (17.4% visit weekly), 98.2% see the same stylist each visit and 69.7% report spending between 1.5-3 hours/visit (17.6% spend 3+ hours/visit). Intervention implications are discussed in light of these results.

Learning Objectives: Participants who attend this session will be able to

• Describe a protocol for recruiting beauty salons into a health promotion research study; and identify which method of recruitment has the best success rate.
• Describe three strategies for recruiting salon customers into a health promotion research study.
• Describe a typical African American beauty salon customer in North Carolina and the intervention implications of this characterization.

Keywords: Research, African American

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.