Empowering community-based organizations to replicate beauty salon – based health initiatives

The Philadelphia Urban Health Initiative was designed to replicate the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health (AAIUH) New York City salon-based health education programs. Created in 1996 and 2001 respectively; Black Pearls and Nuestra Belleza are signature programs of the Institute which utilize beauty salons as educational centers to increase the health awareness and knowledge of African/Caribbean-American and Latina women. Methods of on-site health education include delivery through professionally trained health educators; presenting, distributing and displaying culturally and linguistically appropriate health education videos and literature and providing screening services. The beauty salon environment, therefore, is affected and becomes a vessel for healthy community change and empowerment. After years of successful implementation in New York the Institute, in 2005, extended its reach and goals to empower and build the capacity of two community-based organizations (CBOs) in West and North Philadelphia. The AAIUH equipped CBOs with information, skills and materials to implement asthma and diabetes health education programs in their area beauty salons. In turn, CBOs utilized their leadership to develop and sustain relationships with 20 beauty salons which helped both to increase their community's health knowledge and create linkages to other community health programs and services. By extension, hair stylists took an active role in promoting the programs to their customers-serving as a bridge between the community and health care systems; and were recognized as community leaders. From this presentation, the audience will learn how to: maximize scarce health care resources; recruit and train community-based partners; implement an innovative program; evaluate the techniques employed to successfully replicate a health education program in a non-traditional community setting