of tre shades. steven thomas is the director of the university of maryland s center for health equity. it is working on this push. steven, you started the barber shop initiative known as hair which stands for health advocates in reach and research, more than a decade ago. you used this model to help folks get covid tests. what makes salons and barber shops the right outlet for getting vaccine information and even shots into people s arms? first of all, it s an honor to be with you this morning. what an amazing initiative. it s a recognition that no self-respecting black barber would say i will get you in and out in 15 minutes. the black barber shop is a hub. a community center. it doesn t matter how much hair you have. the barber shop and the salon are places where social norms are set. for a long time, it was a place
chairs are filled. tony tells me they can see 400 clients in a week. we step back outside. that is what the bidn administration is counting on. they have a wide reach and that they have the conversation. he says that s a very hot topic in here right now. what this initiative is going to do, it s going to partner with 1,000 barber shops and beauty shops and have people display information about the vaccine and possibly host some vaccine events inside the barber and beauty salons. the big question is, the goal is to reach african-american communities, the african-american community, which we know has been disproportionally impacted by the pandemic. the vaccine rates still remain lower than the average. the big question, why barber shops, beauty salons? i think a lot of people would know this. this is a gathering space. this is a gathering location in the black community. tony called it our living room,
people to go out and get vaccinated. they really need to find those people who can be influential to those republican men, whether it s their doctor saying they got vaccinated so, you know, to get some of that out of the you know, that skepticism, push that away but yeah, they re going to need to find people who can convince those republican men they should get vaccinated. it s not just republican men, the real kind of divide in terms of vaccine hesitancy is a class divide. put the states up, a lot of people who are non-college americans, black and white and those are the folks least likely to get the vaccine. it s striking when you look at the data. the higher vaccination rate is among african-american, college educated folks and then white americans, and then latino americans. so you are going to need a real influencer in those communities, which you see the biden administration trying to do with this going into barbershops and beauty salons, having pastors who have a real co
where they are, we ll be working with black coalition against covid and other organizations to launch a new initiative called shots at the shop. barbershops, beauty shops, our hubs of activity information on black and brown communities in particular, many communities across the nation. local barbers, stylists, they become key advocates for vaccinations in their communities. offering information to customers, booking appointments for them, even using their own businesses as vaccination sites. we re going to work with shops across the country to make a bigger impact over the next month. we ll also kick things off this weekend with a national canvassing weekend, where thousands of volunteers will be out knocking on doors and encourage their communities to get vaccinated. and mayors will be stepping up even more over the next month and partnering with us on the
are testing requirements, quarantine requirements. i think being honest, especially here, while many countries people are visiting have not had access to the vaccine, it s incredibly port for the world to be safe and for the united states to think about requirements especially as we lift travel bans. these measures can help reinforce safety. i think i still have my yellow fever card somewhere. biden to launch initiative to recruit 1,000 black owned barber shops and salons to accelerate vaccinations. how optimistic are you about this? this emphasizes that communities need to have faith