Craig Settles: Libraries, Barbershops and Salons Tackle TeleHealthcare Gap

Today, Senator Ed Markey, D-Mass., Senator Chris Van Hollen,D-Maryland, and Representative Grace Meng, D-N.Y., led 40 members of Congress to introduce the Securing Universal Communications Connectivity to Ensure Students Succeed (SUCCESS) Act. The bill would extend the Emergency Connectivity Fund by five years and provide $8 billion a year to schools and libraries for student connectivity off-campus.

Barbershops and hair salons are long-time anchor institutions in African-American communities that have shown promise for advancing telehealth. Their partnering with libraries (a broadband anchor institution), and the Biden Administration’s enlisting of 1,000 shops and salons to help combat COVID-19, telehealth and public health in these communities could go into overdrive.

Missing their July 4 COVID-19 vaccination goals, the Biden Administration raised money to transform the shops into mini-medical centers. This success is motivating shop owners to do more. As one of the targets for $7 billion in broadband funds, libraries are idea partners that can provide broadband services, digital content, and digital and health literacy shops’ customers.

Mike Brown manages a barbershop in Hyattsville, Maryland, and participated in the vaccination program. Brown and others owners talks with their customer about how the vaccines have been proven to work. “I use my platform to advocate for truth and dispel myths,” said Mr. Brown in an Wall Street Journal article, who has also held a vaccination clinic in his shop. “I’ve gotten about 60% of my clients to get vaccinated.”

The program has opened shop owners’ eyes to the power they have to make a difference in the healthcare of their communities. It’s a logical transition from the vaccination program to hypertension screening. Urban Kutz Barbershops in Cleveland have been screening customers for 12 years, recently with telehealth assistance from the famed Cleveland Clinic’s.

Owner Waverley Willis says “Barbers and hairdressers are part-time marriage counselors, psychiatrists, spiritual advisers, and expert listeners. So many customers listen to our medical advice.” He has made a noticeable impact on many of his customers’ healthy eating habits as well.

Think differently about broadband, public health and telehealth

On July 1, the Federal Communications Commission began a 45-day Emergency Connectivity Fund of $7.1 billion in broadband and digital technology funding to support libraries and schools. By August 13, libraries interested in grants from the program must present a proposal on how they plan to spend money for libraries laptops, hotspots, Internet services, and other resources to advance education and remote learning.

A generous interpretation of “education“ enables libraries to serve any patrons with broadband. If libraries are situated in areas in which there are no ISP services, they can request money from ECF to build their own broadband infrastructure for unserved patrons. Unlike traditional E-rate proposals, ECF doesn’t require a competitive bid for services, meaning libraries can present a quote from the first vender they contact.

Libraries partnering with shops and healthcare organization could give shops laptops, telehealth software, and portable hotspots to provide hypertension screening and other healthcare services that are suited to their customers’ needs up to three years. Shop owners often don’t have computing devices or Internet access in their shops. Telehealth devices such as portable digital blood pressure monitors and digital scales will have to be provided separately and possibly through funds from another government agency such as Health & Human Services.

For hypertension screening, for example, shops can take customers’ blood pressures digitally. The healthcare provider takes that data through telehealth and recommends treatment when necessary or advisable. The partner likely would have established rates for their healthcare services. Shops can then decide on additional telehealth services they want to provide.

The shops could work with libraries to develop health information and interactive Web content to reduce hypertension and other medical issues through healthier living, plus the libraries can provide telehealth services beyond what the shops can do.

Libraries and shops can also designate customers who need a laptop, hotspots and telehealth software for chronic illnesses such as severe hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, mental health treatments, and so forth. However, these devices in this scenario would need to be given out for longer periods then just a couple of weeks. For occasional medical appointments, libraries can loan out laptops and hotspots for limited times such as two or three weeks. Libraries are good at delivering digital training and literacy programs.

Why barbershops, hair salons and libraries?

Facilitating telehealth and healthcare does have an educational element for barbershop and hair salon customers as well as for general library patrons. These health services and information help both groups of people learn more about their own health, enables them to react effectively to medical issues, and be more proactive in taking care of their health.

The ability for shops and salons to reach and impact African-American communities is legendary. “This type of barbershop health initiative has been shown to be effective,” said Cameron Webb, a senior White House health equity adviser on the coronavirus. Willis adds, “On more than one occasion, a guy’s blood pressure would be so high we would urge him to skip the haircut and go straight to the emergency room.”

The author of this opinion is municipal broadband expert and industry analyst Craig Settles.

Libraries have years of experience introducing new technology such as broadband to underserved populations. Matt McLain, Associate Director for Community Engagement at Salt Lake County Library, said, “We’ve had a pretty good amount of success reaching Hispanic populations at their markets. We have Asian markets out here too. And our health initiatives are quite important with the church leadership in these communities.”

The healthcare and broadband gaps are real and they are deadly! So many elements of the COVID pandemic reiterates the deadliness of those gaps. According to the Centers for Disease Control, of the data collected as of June 14 nearly two-thirds of people who got at least one dose of the vaccine were White. Only 9% were African-Americans. 14 million urban household cannot get any broadband, without which you cannot get telehealth, and 75% are Black or other people of color.

There may never be as many federal broadband and health-related grant programs as we are seeing now. Partnership potential between libraries and haircare shops are many. Will public health practitioners and advocates, broadband builders, and community leaders step up?

Craig Settles conducts needs analyses with community stakeholders who want broadband networks to improve economic development, healthcare, education and local government. He hosts the radio talk show Gigabit Nation, and is Director of Communities United for Broadband, a national grass roots effort to assist communities launching their networks. He recently created a guide to help librarians uncover patrons’ healthcare needs, create community health milestones and effectively market telehealth. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

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