Promoting physical activity among Black men who visit barbershops

Black men suffer disproportionately from a wide range of chronic diseases. We need innovative health promotion interventions to reach Black men where they live, work, play and socialize. Barbershops represent a promising setting for reaching and reinforcing health messages with Black men. We conducted formative research to explore the possibility of working collaboratively with barbershop owners, barbers and their customers to promote physical activity in the barbershop. We recruited 4 Black barbershops to join the study and conducted 4 owner and 9 barber interviews. Among barbers/owners, 88% reported talking with their customers about health; 100% reported being interested in learning about health and attending future training workshops; and, 100% of barbers/owners believed that it was a good idea to promote physical activity in the barbershops. Among customers, we identified 76 eligible Black men and 62 (82%) completed a written questionnaire; and 45 (59.2%) completed a FitStop consisting of blood pressure screening, heart rate, grip strength test, and step test. In addition, we distributed 34 acticals that participating men agreed to wear for 7 days and return to the research team in a postage-paid envelope. This presentation will share results of customer knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about physical activity that leads up to the development of a contextually and culturally appropriate barbershop-based intervention targeting Black owners, barbers and customers. Implications for reaching and reinforcing health messages for Black men in barbershops will be discussed.