The Barbershop Study: How an Unorthodox Study on Black Men ’ s Health Brought Down the House

This study essentially shows that a health care system that moves itself into barbershops is effective in one third of men found to have poorly controlled blood pressure.  I’m also fairly sure a pharmacist in my living room will improve my lipid profile.  And it bears repeating, that despite this herculean effort, two-thirds of black men chose not to connect with a healthcare system that was in their barbershop.  You can go ahead and put money on the odds that Harry White remains out of reach – its one you’ll win 66% of the time. I’ll also point out the study duration was six months – Harry had shown up like clockwork for 6 months after his stroke before disappearing. No trial is perfect, but the hype that surrounded this trial given the limitations would have made MGM proud.  One would think the terrors of evidence-based medicine that routinely devastate pharmaceutical companies for things like unplanned protocol adjustments are silent about protocol changes clearly designed to increase the size of the treatment effect of the intervention. Regardless, I’m not an absolutist, and applaud the achievements of the investigators in doing important work to improve the lives of members of a community that disproportionately bear the ravages of uncontrolled hypertension. I do take issue with this idea being sold as a scaleable, practical solution for many.  In most spaces, intriguing ideas that don’t have a working business model die.  In healt...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs