SHOP Talk
At hair salons and barbershops, stylists cut through the unease surrounding colorectal cancer
By Czerne Reid
Photographs by Tracy Glantz
CR | Page No. 52 | Winter 2009
Beauty salons and barbershops
are the stuff of legend—where
people go to hear the latest news
and gossip, and to unburden
their chests. In places where
conversations can start with
the presidential election, veer
to gospel concerts and end with
warnings about cheating spouses
and HIV infection, almost no topic
seems off-limits.
In South Carolina, that includes
colorectal cancer.
Although screening tools can
frequently find the cancer at an
early or even precancerous stage,
it’s still the second leading cause
of all cancer deaths in the United
States. Each year, about 50,000
Americans die of the cancer,
and almost 149,000 new cases
are diagnosed, according to the
American Cancer Society. In South
Carolina alone this year, about
730 patients will die, and 2,170
residents will find out they have
the disease.
But a new initiative is aiming to
trim these numbers. Launched in
July 2008, the program, known as
Shop Talk Movement, is teaching
South Carolina barbers and
stylists to talk candidly with their
clients about colon health. In an
environment in which everyone
opens up about everything, the
organizers hope colorectal cancer
can become another ingredient in
the talk soup.
A SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT—
AND A SCREENING
Shop Talk Movement focuses on
reaching out to African-Americans,
who generally face more
aggressive forms of colorectal
cancer than whites, and who die
of the disease at higher rates. In
South Carolina, the annual death
rate from colorectal cancer is 57
percent higher for black men than
for white men, and 48 percent
higher for black women than white
women, according to the most
recent data from the National
Cancer Institute. And among South
Carolinians older than 50, 47
percent of blacks reported having
colorectal cancer screenings with
sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy,
while 63 percent of whites said
they did, according to the South
