Cut and Connect

Problem: As of June23rd, 2021, 109,067 latinos and 89,380 blacks have died due to COVID 19. People of color have reduced healthcare utilization and access, don't trust physicians, lack of time due to hourly wages, immigration issues, chronic medical conditions, and lack of physical activity.In recent years there has been in surge in barbershop health clinics.

Solution: Our solution is reach out to black and hispanic hair salons and barbershops in the United States in underserved, healthcare deserts areas where to promote health and wellness, early diagnosis, screening, dosing accurate exercise prescription for the disease management with use of tele health and connecting with racial/ethnic concordance physicians to improve outcomes. This solution can be scaled and tailored globally by educating barbers /hair stylists to start a conversation about health of their clients for early diagnosis and prevention. This solution can be scaled to every barbershops/ hair salon in the every town, county, cities and states. According to American Diabetic Association "Salons are a social support center offering a safe place to seek guidance on personal issues such as health decisions."Barbers and hair stylists are uniquely positioned in the society and are valuable source for health messaging. Barbershops and hair salons are the best places for social interaction among the communities. The barbershops and hair salons have been historically been a safe, nonjudgmental space for men and women to talk about anything—sports, politics, religion, health and barbers and hair stylists are most trusted persons who do hair and can be trusted to help you with the problem.Research have shown that hispanics, non hispanic blacks and south asians have significantly higher prevalence of physical inactivity.People of color are twice more likely to have chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, CVD, Asthma, compared to white people Through "CUT AND CONNECT", We envision to promote health and wellness, safe exercise prescription for people with arthritis, chronic pain management, assess balance, coordination, annual checks, fall risk assessment and strategies to improve physical activity among people by having brief advice and discussion, face-to-face/one-on-one and group sessions, skills training, visual modes and presentations, handouts of brochures and diaries, use of motivational prompts, individual goal setting and planning, and exploration with patients and clients of barriers and problem solving strategies among people of color at barbershops and hair salons. In these times we envision to use tele health platforms by using simple laptop and educated barbers of checking vital signs of their customers, BMI calculation based on race and ethnicity recommendations and facilitate proper referral to the physicians who see patients of same race and ethnicity. As recent study showed that patients prefer physicians who prefer same race and ethnicity. The " CUT and CONNECT" platform would be tremendous help to facilitate "shots at the shop" champaign by the President of the United States Mr. Joe Biden for increasing covid vaccination rates among African American communities. We believe that Healthcare locator SDK can be used to connect black /hispanic barbershops/hair salons health clinics in underserved areas and healthcare desert areas.

Built With

• healthcare
• locator
• sdk