Shop Talk: Lay-health barbers offer health advice with style

Shop Talk was a pilot health promotion campaign that focused on engagement of barbers to serve as lay-health advisors to counsel their peers on important health issues. In the African-American community, barbershops have long been considered comfortable settings for personal conversations. The goal of Shop Talk was to employ barbers as lay-health advisors to positively change patron's attitudes about diet, physical activity and other health behaviors with a culturally-competent information campaign. The intervention included lay-health advisor training to barbers and distribution of the Feel Good Guide – developed with barbers' input – containing information on key health issues and other resources. To evaluate the implementation process, qualitative interviews were conducted post-intervention with barbers (n=21). All 21 participants responded positively when asked about the program and Feel Good Guide. Many suggestions for improvement were made, including the size of the book, the depth of the information and the selection of recipes. Ninety percent of participants reported they liked the lay-health advisor training. Most barbers reported they allowed their customers to initiate a conversation about health with the help of the Feel Good Guide. The most popular topics discussed were healthy eating, diabetes maintenance, blood pressure, physical activity and sexual health. All barbers expressed that their customers were making lifestyle changes as a result of the program. Data from this pilot study indicates the Shop Talk program is feasible and successful relative to implementation and participation. The lay-health advisor model employed by this program could be easily applied to other community-based settings.