Heart of a Woman Project: Utilizing salon hairstylists as lay health advocates to deliver culturally tailored heart health messages in their community

Background: Women of African descent are disproportionately affected by heart disease. A recent population based study found that African Americans are less knowledgeable about risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD ) than whites. Thus, innovative strategies to reach more women of color with health information focused on CVD are much needed. In minority communities, the beauty salon is a traditional cultural epicenter and is an ideal setting which health promotion take place. This pilot study utilized the salon setting to train stylists as advocates to deliver culturally tailored heart health messages to their clients to promote heart healthy behaviors.

Methods: 7 stylists were trained using a CVD culturally tailored curriculum for two-hours. The curriculum was presented utilizing a role play format. A pre- and post-training assessment was conducted.

Results: The stylists' age ranged from 20-59 with the majority being 30-39 years of age (42.9%). Knowledge concerning systolic blood pressure significantly increased from the pre-curriculum (28.5%) to post curriculum (85.7%) (p-value = 0.05). However, although more women recognized diastolic blood pressure and effective ways to reduce CVD there was not a significant change (p-values = 0.30 and 0.23, respectively). Following the curriculum 100% of the women were willing to discuss CVD education with their clients.

Conclusion: The curriculum is an acceptable guide to educate hairstylists about CVD. The program is being piloted to test the impact of stylist delivered CVD control messages on health behaviors of salon customers.