Research Description
High rates of type 2 diabetes among Black women are a pressing public health concern. While type 2 diabetes can be delayed or even prevented through evidence-based lifestyle modification programming, screening rates and referral to these programs for Black women are low. Hair stylists are well positioned to facilitate diabetes risk screening and encourage Black women to enroll in diabetes prevention programming. To inform the development of culturally and contextually relevant strategies to increase screening and prevention program participation for Black women, the proposed project will explore perceptions of type 2 diabetes risk screening and prevention program referral in beauty shops. A multilevel examination of the salon will take place to assess readiness for the intervention to be delivered in a salon setting by hair stylists.Research Profile
What area of diabetes research does your project cover? What role will this particular project play in preventing, treating and/or curing diabetes?My project leverages community partnerships to screen for diabetes risk (i.e., prediabetes) among a highly disparate and vulnerable population (i.e., Black women). In using hair stylists to identify those at high risk for diabetes and providing referral to extant diabetes prevention programming, this study uses innovative strategies that utilize community allies to increase access to preventive services. This project will increase access to screening and to the evidence-based diabetes prevention program.
If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond?My project will help people understand their risk for type 2 diabetes and will provide awareness about evidence-based prevention programming for those at high-risk for developing type 2 diabetes. For Black women, the project will provide screening in a convenient setting (i.e., the hair salon) which they frequent and support from a trusted source (i.e., hairstylist). This project will further efforts to bridge clinic-community partnerships and cultivate the hair salon as a health promoting setting.
Why important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play?My introduction to translational research was 13 years ago working as a research assistant in the Indiana University School of Medicine Diabetes Translational Research Center under the direction of David Marrero. The initial study I worked on was a community health center based diabetes risk screening and diabetes prevention program referral intervention. This study ignited my passion and commitment to work in this space and find ways to engage those who needed these interventions the most. I believe in meeting people where they are and understanding the contexts in which they live. My research seeks to design and implement culturally informed, settings-based interventions to achieve health equity for vulnerable and underserved populations. My desire is to understand how to better engage these populations- particularly Black women in cardiometabolic risk reduction interventions. This award will further my research efforts to examine the hair salon as a health promoting setting and identify implementation strategies to mitigate the disparate rates of diabetes and diabetes related complications for Black women.
In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going?I see diabetes research moving more into the community and with greater consideration of the social and political determinants of health. Context matters and it will be important to consider where people live, who they interact with, what they do for work and for recreation, and how they receive information, and why they engage (or not) in interventions to address the diabetes epidemic.