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Posts tagged as “Cedars-Sinai hypertension center”

Hypertension Study Based in African-American Barbershops Honored By Clinical Research Forum For Saving Lives

By goodblacknews on March 6, 2019
Barber Eric Muhammad takes patron Marc Sims’ blood pressure at his Inglewood, CA shop A New You. (Photo by Cedars-Sinai)

The Clinical Research Forum recognized the Cedars-Sinai’s Smidt Heart Institute with a 2019 Top Ten Clinical Research Achievement Award for its study aimed at developing a blood-pressure control program for African-American men in the comfortable and convenient environments of their barbershops.

In just six short months, the study – first published in the New England Journal of Medicine and led by the late hypertension expert Ronald G. Victor, MD – improved the outcomes and control of high blood pressure in more than 60 percent of participants.

The 12-month data published recently in the peer-reviewed journal Circulation backs up the results, proving that a pharmacist-led, barbershop-based medical intervention can successfully lower blood pressure in African-American men who face a higher risk of disability and premature death due to uncontrolled high blood pressure.

Not only are black men disproportionately affected by hypertension, they’re also the least likely population to seek treatment.

Nearly 64% of the study participants who worked with their barber and a pharmacist at the barbershop were able to lower their blood pressure.

Barber Eric Muhammad says that’s one reason he was so enthusiastic about the study. He’d hosted other single-day awareness events about hypertension, but Dr. Victor’s study aimed to find a long-term solution for treating high blood pressure.

“High blood pressure has cost the lives and health of a lot of good men,” Muhammad said. “What’s different about this study is it looks at bringing down blood pressure by using the men’s community—their friends, family, and support group.”

The collaboration between physicians, pharmacists and barbers showed that medical intervention in neighborhood settings can profoundly improve the health of hard-to-reach, underserved communities. Cedars-Sinai was nominated for the award by researchers at UCLA, the University of California, Los Angeles.

L.A. Barbers To Use $8.5 Million Grant To Screen Black Men For Hypertension

By goodblacknews on June 24, 2014

Black Barber Shop Health Outreach Program Launches Tour (thumbnail)Barbershops are central to the narrative of Black manhood in the United States.
It is where jokes are cracked, friends are made, issues debated, and, soon, where blood pressure will be tested.
According to the Daily Breeze, Dr. Ronald G. Victor, the head of Cedars-Sinai’s hypertension center, will use a $8.5 million grant to help train Black barbers to check men for high blood pressure.
“Uncontrolled hypertension is one of the biggest health problems facing the African-American community today,” said Victor, the Burns and Allen Chair in Cardiology Research. “Hypertension is called the silent killer because there are no symptoms. We need to find a way to reach out to the community and prevent the serious complications caused by high blood pressure because all too often, by the time a patient finds out they have the condition, the heart and kidneys already have been damaged.”
Read Cedars-Sinai’s statement on the groundbreaking project below:

A Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute physician has been awarded an $8.5 million grant aimed at enlisting African-American barbers in the fight against hypertension, a deadly condition that can cause strokes, heart attacks and organ failure, and which is particularly devastating to African-American men.
Ronald G. Victor, MD, director of the Hypertension Center in the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, was the first to subject increasingly popular barbershop-based health programs to scientific scrutiny with randomized, controlled testing. His study, published in 2011 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, showed that if barbers offered blood pressure checks during men’s haircuts and encouraged patrons with hypertension to follow up with physicians, hundreds of lives could be saved annually.
Now, with the grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Victor is about to start a new, randomized, controlled clinical trial that will include 500 African-American male patrons of 20 Los Angeles-area barbershops. All participants will have uncontrolled hypertension and be longtime customers of the participating barbershops. The goal of the new trial is to test the effectiveness of barbershop hypertension programs and whether expanding such programs is feasible and cost-effective.
The Cedars-Sinai-led research study will be conducted in partnership with several California medical centers.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 67 million American adults have hypertension. Of that number, 53 million are aware of their condition, 47 million are treated, and 31 million have it under control. Among African-Americans, 43 percent of men and 45.7 percent of women have hypertension, compared to 33.9 percent of White men and 31.3 percent of White women.
Victor’s 2011 study concludes that if hypertension intervention programs were put in place in the estimated 18,000 African-American barbershops in the U.S., it would result in the first year in about 800 fewer heart attacks, 550 fewer strokes and 900 fewer deaths.
“We hope that the new trial’s outcomes will show an even greater benefit while lowering the cost of providing high-quality healthcare for hypertension in a high-risk population,” Victor said.
article via newsone.com