Barbers trained to test blood pressure in new health project

ome barbers in London will be trained to test the blood pressure of their customers in a project looking to combat undiagnosed high blood pressure.

The project, run by London South Bank University (LSBU), is targeting black and Asian men in London in particular because they are statistically more likely to have undiagnosed high blood pressure. Around 4 million people in the UK have undiagnosed high blood pressure, some 500,000 of whom are in London.

The barbershop health project follows the example of a similar project which took place in Los Angeles between 2016 and 2018, in which 68 per cent of those tested in barbershops were found to have high blood pressure.