Stylists, barbers key to program focused on improving Black health

By Jennifer Fernandez

GREENSBORO — Charlotte Sparks likes to get her hair done at Empire Beauty School. It gives students a chance to practice what they’re learning, the 84-year-old Greensboro resident said.

On the weekend before Christmas, the school’s beauty salon also offered clients a chance to learn. The school was one of six sites in the South to take part in the Black Beauty & Barbershop Health Initiative. 

The program is a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ “Risk Less. Do More.” campaign and the Black Beauty & Wellness Foundation, an organization created “to empower Black women & girls with the knowledge to choose healthier lifestyles.”

The goal is to use beauty spaces, which play a vital role in Black culture, to increase awareness of vaccines that reduce serious illness from flu, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. The flu alone killed 28,000 people in the U.S. in 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated.

“Stylists and barbers have always been trusted advisers” to their community, said Margo Wade LaDrew, founder and CEO of the Black Beauty & Wellness Foundation.

As respiratory illnesses begin to rise as the weather cools, it is important to get information to at-risk communities, which includes Black residents, LaDrew said.

“A lot of people want the information,” she said. “They just sometimes don’t know where to get it.”

At-risk community

In November, the HBCU Tailgate Tour stopped at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. The tour, which celebrates the culture of historically Black colleges and universities, partnered with DHHS to provide students and alumni with updated flu and COVID-19 vaccinations, along with health resources and educational materials.

LaDrew said these community partnerships are important to get health information to the Black community, which is disproportionately affected by many health issues, including respiratory illnesses.

At the peak of last year’s respiratory virus season, Black adults were more likely to be hospitalized than white and Hispanic adults, according to CDC data.

Black Americans have higher rates of diabetes, heart disease and sickle cell, which can all increase the risk of flu complications.

Free health screening

At Empire Beauty School, clients and students alike took part Dec. 20 in the free health screenings offered through the Black Beauty & Barbershop Health Initiative. Personnel from Wake County’s HealthCore Homecare took temperature, blood pressure and glucose readings for anyone who wanted them.

“We just talked to them about how important their health is,” said Sarah Rhodes, a certified nurse assistant and director of operations for HealthCore Homecare.

Rhodes and her colleagues gave everyone a sheet of paper with their health data on it and a gift bag that included COVID-19 tests and a free beauty product. Participants also received pamphlets with information on the “Risk Less. Do More.” campaign and information on how to get a free flu shot from Walgreens.

“It’s wonderful because a lot of people don’t know all the things available to them,” Sparks said. “It will help get the message out.”

The Black Beauty & Barbershop Health Initiative has held health fairs at sites in Birmingham, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; Greenville, South Carolina; and Shreveport and New Orleans, Louisiana.

The first couple of weeks they offered vaccinations on site, but that has shifted to referring participants to Walgreens, which has partnered with the program to provide vaccinations, LaDrew said. 

‘Perfect place and intersection’

Christine Noah, executive director of Empire Beauty School in Greensboro, said there was a good turnout for the program. She said it makes sense to share health information in beauty spaces such as the school where people gather to talk and spend time together.

Students already learn a lot about health issues, so they know when not to touch somebody or when to refer them for care, she said.

“It was also an opportunity to teach the students that they have to take care of themselves,” Noah added.

Before the 20th century, many barbers were also doctors. Today, many hair stylists also have health education degrees, LaDrew said.

“So it’s really the perfect place and intersection,” she said.

“We take women’s interest in beauty and kind of slip in the health information to them, because when you have someone doing your hair, it’s such a personal relationship,” LaDrew said.

Mistrust in health care system

That relationship is especially important because of the Black community’s deep mistrust of the U.S. health care system, which has a legacy of experimenting on Black people without their consent — from the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, which stretched for close to 50 years in the mid-20th century, to North Carolina’s eugenics program that sterilized more than 7,600 people. 

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 55 percent of Black Americans believe nonconsensual experiments are being conducted on Black people today.

An earlier Pew Research Center survey also found that 55 percent of Black Americans reported having at least one negative health care experience. For younger Black women, 71 percent reported having at least one negative health care experience, for example, they had to speak up to get proper care, or the pain they were experiencing wasn’t taken seriously.

LaDrew said there’s vaccination hesitancy in the Black community, along with misinformation about health issues being shared.

“Our job is just to be able to disseminate information for the community and to provide the resources and the opportunities if they should need it for themselves or their families,” she said.

She wouldn’t speculate on what changes could come if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed as health secretary. Kennedy has promoted misinformation about vaccines and lobbied against the COVID-19 and measles vaccines in the past. 

“Hopefully, the government will vet whoever they put in that position, and that if he is in that position, that they will have some regulations that he will still have to abide by,” LaDrew said.

“I just think that our government owes our community,” she said, “to make sure that they’re getting the most updated and correct information, no matter who’s in office.”

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