Using Barbers as Peer Educators to Convey Information on Early Detection of Cancer

University of Alabama at Birmingham: Center for Health Promotion

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention

Topics:
Cancer

The comfortable environment of a barber shop will be used as the setting for a cancer-prevention intervention. Researchers will determine how barbers can act as peer educators to help black male customers increase knowledge of cancer types for which they are most at risk (prostate and colorectal). In North Carolina a two-phase study will begin with developing a training module for barbers. Researchers will interview barbers, observe barbershops, and hold focus groups with male customers to gather information for developing effective and culturally appropriate messages about prostate and colorectal cancer prevention and screening. Then they will teach the barbers how to relay the messages. In the second phase, researchers will test the “TRIM” (Trimming Risk In Men) intervention in four barbershops with 65 customers per shop. In addition to verbal information exchange, barbers will use displays and literature to educate customers. Researchers will collect data on the implementation using observation, surveys, and interviews at regular intervals. Results that will be measured include customer knowledge, intentions, and perception of risk for colorectal and prostate cancer, barber-customer interactions, and changes in the barbershop environment. The Alabama study, also two years long, will develop a parallel intervention using barbers to teach colorectal and prostate cancer prevention and early detection. The first phase will consist of creating a community action plan with a community advisory board made up of four barbers and four clients. In phase two, investigators will develop an intervention based on the community action plan and pilot test the intervention. In phase three, researchers will implement the intervention and evaluate participants’ knowledge, risk awareness, and informed decision-making.

 

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