Barbershop Management of Hypertension in the African American Population: Pitfalls and Opportunities for Extension to Other Underserved Communities.

While barbershop health outreach has become a commonplace in recent years, the quality of the evidence on the effectiveness of such programs has been weak, until the Los Angeles Barbershop Blood Pressure Study (LABBPS), a rigorously carried out cluster-randomized trial, demonstrated a - 21 mmHg greater reduction in BP among black hypertensive men who were assigned to a pharmacist-led HTN intervention when compared with usual care. Given the available evidence, barber health promotion paired with focused hypertension-specialty care has the potential to reduce, if not eliminate, the present wide gap in hypertension care and ultimately lead to a reduction of hypertension-related complications among blacks. Future research should seek to improve the scalability and transferability of the LABBPS model both to other geographic regions and to other at-risk groups.