Beauty & Barber Shops Blood Pressure Self Screening Initiative–Expands to Six Erie County/Buffalo Locations

Millennium Collaborative Care, in partnership with The National Witness Project, has expanded the “Beauty & Barber Shops Blood Pressure Self Screening Initiative” to Erie County, adding six new City of Buffalo locations.

Patterned after a successful launch of the free self-monitoring program in Niagara County and the City of Niagara Falls; adults 18-years of age and older can now visit any of the following Buffalo Beauty and Barber Shop locations to access a free blood pressure self-screening. (The Buffalo locations bring the number of Beauty and Barber Shops to 12 now participating in the self-screening program.)

Bringing Cardio Vascular Health Awareness to Buffalo Community

The objective of “Barber & Beauty Shop Initiative” is to bring cardio vascular health awareness to members of the community at locations that are most comfortable and convenient. While patrons visit the shops for hair services, they will at the same time have the opportunity to participate in self-monitored blood pressure screenings. 

To enable the self-screenings, each barber/beauty shop is supplied with a small digital blood pressure monitor which the patron can place around his or her wrist to read and record their own blood pressure. Instructions have been provided to all barber/beauty shops to aid in the process. In addition, the shops have also been provided health literacy information in the form of posters “Ask Me 3” and “Say Ah” which provide information on how a patient can get the most from her/his visit(s) to the doctor.

“With ongoing education and relationship development, Millennium and The National Witness Project have developed valuable relationships with local barber and beauty shops where we are now able to establish Blood Pressure Self-Screening Initiative locations in the Erie County/Buffalo community,” said Ebony Patterson-White, Community Health Worker Coordinator, Millennium Collaborative Care. “We are excited to continue to link essential healthcare services to these new locations after initially launching in Niagara Falls, and look forward to an opportunity to expand next to the Southern Tier.”

“The National Witness Project is excited to be working with Millennium Collaborative Care to launch the Barber and Beauty Shop Initiative in Erie County,” said Dee Johnson, Project Director, The National Witness Project. “Together, we will be providing Community Health Workers to assist community members with access to community services.”

ABOUT THE NATIONAL WITNESS PROJECT

The Witness Project® was initiated in 1990 by Deborah O. Erwin, Ph.D., a medical anthropologist at the Arkansas Cancer Research Center, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and Thea Spatz, Ed.D., a certified health education specialist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The daily operations were addressed by two survivors Mrs. Charlie Stayton and Mattye Willis. It was developed in cooperation with the American Cancer Society (Mid-South Division), Arkansas Department of Health, Delta Health Education Center, and local churches and community groups.

The Witness Project® was the first program to focus on socioeconomically disadvantaged women through African American churches. Drs. Spatz and Erwin used anthropological fieldwork, individual interviews, and focus groups to assess the population’s needs and to develop and quantify the intervention study. The intervention follows the 4MAT System which presents educational material sequentially to address four distinct learning styles and brain hemispheric preferences.

Story-telling and experiential learning techniques are used in the intervention, rather than a traditional didactic presentation. The Witness Project® creates a personal connection between the messenger and the audience in a non-threatening atmosphere. The result is a cancer education intervention that works for African-American women.

ABOUT MILLENNIUM COLLABORATIVE CARE

Millennium Collaborative Care (MCC), is a Performing Provider System (PPS) under New York State’s Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) Program, a statewide initiative championed by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo to fundamentally restructure the health care delivery system by reinvesting in the Medicaid program, with the primary goal of reducing avoidable hospital use by 25 percent over five years.

Millennium Collaborative Care, a Performing Provider System (PPS), is igniting healthcare change by partnering with physicians, healthcare providers and community-based organizations to improve the delivery of healthcare for Medicaid patients across the eight counties of Western New York. (Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Niagara, Orleans, Wyoming). To follow our progress and learn more visit www.millenniumcc.org.