To increase vaccinations, trusted local stores are being enlisted to help convince the hesitant to get the shot before Covid spreads again. JL
Stephanie Armour reports in the Wall Street Journal:
Tapping barbershops and salons as a way to dispense health information and resources to a broader population has been shown to be effective as far back as the 1960s. Through the program, barbers and stylists undergo training that helps them hold conversations with customers about vaccines and open their shops up to public health officials for initiatives such as onsite vaccinations. The administration is building on the barbershop vaccination effort as it steps up community efforts, trying to reach people reluctant to get the vaccine.Some customers at the barbershop Mike Brown manages in Hyattsville, Md., say they don’t plan to get a coronavirus vaccine. They say that the vaccine doesn’t work, or that they have heard Covid-19 is a hoax.
Mr. Brown’s Shop Spa just outside Washington, D.C., is part of a national initiative that’s enlisting Black barbers and stylists to combat vaccine hesitancy. He listens—then talks about how the vaccines have been proven to work.
“I use my platform to advocate for truth and dispel myths,” said Mr. Brown, who has also held a vaccination clinic in his shop. “I’ve gotten about 60% of my clients to get vaccinated,” he said.
The Biden administration is building on the barbershop vaccination effort as it steps up such community efforts, trying to reach people reluctant to get the vaccine. The White House has acknowledged that it was falling short of its goal of getting at least one shot into the arms of 70% of adults by July 4. Only about 60% of Americans are partially or fully vaccinated. One reason behind the shortfall is vaccine hesitancy and barriers to accessing the vaccine that can disproportionately affect the Black community.
The barbershop program, dubbed “Shots at the Shop,” is described by administration officials as critical for reaching vaccine holdouts and easing barriers to access.
The White House in June announced the initiative, which aims to have barbers and hair stylists at 1,000 Black-owned salons nationwide provide educational material, offer on-site vaccination clinics and answer questions about the shots.
“This type of barbershop health initiative has been shown to be effective,” said Cameron Webb, a senior White House health equity adviser on the coronavirus, who approached the University of Maryland about the idea because it already had pioneered a Black-owned barbershop and salon health outreach program. “As the owner or barber, as they hear things, they’re able to jump into conversations with facts.”
Increasing vaccinations among at-risk populations has been a priority for the Biden administration, and the pandemic has been especially deadly for Black people. They are twice as likely as white people to die from Covid-19 and almost three times more likely to be hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
African-Americans are more likely to have underlying health conditions such as Type 2 diabetes, they’re more likely to work in front-line jobs where they can’t get paid time off or work from home, and they may face more hurdles to accessing care, according to health officials.
Race and ethnicity data are known for only 57% of people who have received at least one dose of vaccine, according to the CDC. But of that group, nearly two-thirds of people who got at least one dose as of June 14 were white. Only 9% were Black. African-Americans make up about 13% of the overall population.
A poll of a nationally representative sample of 207 Black Americans conducted in November through December 2020 found high levels of vaccine hesitancy and mistrust of Covid vaccines, according to research firm Rand Corp. A main driver of hesitancy was general mistrust of healthcare systems and providers, according to the survey. The data are mixed, however, with some studies showing little difference in hesitancy between white and Black people in the U.S.
“The lesson of Covid is this miraculous, Manhattan Project-style miracle of creating vaccines in record time,” said Stephen Thomas, a health policy professor at the University of Maryland who directs its Center for Health Equity. He also heads the university’s barbershop outreach program and designed a preventive-health barbershop program in 2001 in Pittsburgh. “The tragedy is our inability to get it into the arms of people equitably.”
Donations are powering much of the administration effort. Through the program, barbers and stylists undergo training that helps prepare them to hold conversations with customers about vaccines and open their shops up to public health officials for initiatives such as onsite vaccinations. The salons and barbershops also provide clients with educational handouts while televisions run educational messages.
Tapping the barbershops and salons as a way to dispense health information and resources to a broader population has been shown to be effective as far back as at least the 1960s. Some Black-owned barbershops in the 1970s in Baltimore and Massachusetts served as pilot programs for providing hypertension and diabetes screening projects to customers.
An initiative recruited Black men at barbershops for colorectal cancer screenings between 2010 and 2013 in New York City. Customers who consulted with a community health worker as part of the initiative were more likely to undergo the evaluations than those who didn’t, according to a 2017 study in the American Journal of Public Health.
“The barbershops and beauty salons are right in their community, even if hospitals are not,” said Joyce Balls-Berry, an epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. Her father, James Balls, helped in the early 1990s to set up barbershop-for-health outreaches in Missouri and Illinois.
The administration’s effort includes work with the Black Coalition Against Covid, a community-based initiative dedicated to saving Black lives, the University of Maryland Center for Health Equity, SheaMoisture, a personal care company, and Barbicide, which makes a disinfectant solution used by barbers and cosmetologists. The National Association of County and City Health Officials is helping link shops to health groups that provide staff to administer shots, organizers said.
Medical experts not connected to the project have welcomed the effort. Leana Wen, former Baltimore city health commissioner and a health policy professor at George Washington University, said it’s critical to bring vaccination efforts into communities.
“It’s great to have barbershops enlisted in the effort—we need many touch points, including grocery stores, churches, schools and workplaces,” she said.
A recent event turned the Tre Shadez Hair Studio in Capitol Heights, Md., into a makeshift vaccine clinic, where a number of customers brought their families.
Capitol Heights, like Hyattsville, is in Prince George’s County, the largest majority Black jurisdiction in the state. It has been harder hit by coronavirus compared with neighboring counties, with 86,000 cases as of June 30, based on state data. Nearby Montgomery County, with a bigger population, has seen about 71,000 cases.
Salon owner Katrina Randolph greeted clients as they came for appointments while her husband worked as a DJ spinning music. An observation room was set up where some customers sat in chairs that double as blow dryers. Luminis Health, a nonprofit health system, provided healthcare workers and vaccines.
“There were nine teenagers who came in” to get vaccinated, said Ms. Randolph, who had especially hoped to reach out to younger people eligible for vaccines.
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