D.3.2. Research Subproject 2: Barbers Against Prostate Cancer (Pi: Luque, Co-I Vest, Co-I Markossian, Consultant Gwede). In this project, we seek to further refine and test a multi-component, culturally appropriate prostate cancer educational intervention in a community trial for low-income, rural African American men in southern Georgia to reduce disparities in access to information on prostate cancer screening. The proposed research is innovative because we are testing the efficacy of this multi-component intervention in rural areas using barber health advisors to increase Informed decision making for prostate cancer screening in African American men. The central hypothesis of Research Subproject 2 is that a multi-component, community-based intervention delivered by trained barber health advisors targeted to rural, low-income, African American men will be more effective in facilitating informed decision making for prostate cancer screening when compared to an information-only (e.g., pamphlets) comparison condition. The barber health advisors will also act as bridges to the health care system for men without regular health care providers. Our long-term goal is to reduce disparities in prostate cancer among African American men living in the rural, southern US. The proposal's rationale stems from the contention that interventions using trained barber health advisors are culturally appropriate and feasible strategies for disseminating prostate cancer information to African American men in the US South, as has been shown in Luque's previous pilot studies. Because of health care access barriers for low-income African American men, trained barber health advisors who link individuals with the health care system are needed to successfully increase informed decision making for prostate cancer screening.
