photo by steed media service

African American communities often deal with health disparities that affect black males, but very seldom do these neighborhoods have a medical professional solely committed to reversing the trend. As the founder and CEO of The Diabetic Amputation Prevention Foundation, Dr. Bill Releford Jr. has been a champion for his Los Angeles community by educating men about the many risk factors they face. As one of the primary doctors involved in the first annual Los Angeles Black Barbershop Health Outreach Program, Releford coordinated with 22 black-owned barbershops in the Los Angeles area to stress the message that one’s wealth is dependent upon one’s health.

“The most important thing to understand is that everybody wants to be rich and everybody wants to be wealthy but your health is the number one prerequisite for accessing wealth. Now is the time for African Americans to take their own health care and get information into their own hands. Our goal is to utilize the existing infrastructure of black-owned barbershops with the dissemination of health information for the benefit of African American health,” explains Dr. Releford.

Health stations were established in the barbershops involved in the program and manned with medical professionals testing black males for hypertension and diabetes. Dr. Releford insists that the starting point for a healthy generation of black men begins with the food choices they make on a daily basis. “Many of our patients who live the longest eat five colors every day. Something red, something green, something purple, something yellow [and] something white. These are the vegetables that many of us don’t get a chance to eat; so we believe that the elimination of fast foods from your diet will help tremendously,” he says. –jason thompson

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