A mission to expand health access for Black men in Wisconsin

Nathan Denzin:
In the summer of 2004, Aaron Perry watched an Ironman competition in Madison and it changed his life.

Aaron Perry:
I remember looking and watching and I thought, you know, “I wish I wasn’t diabetic,” ’cause I wanted to do it.

Nathan Denzin:
Perry has diabetes, something that he shares with about 13% of Black Americans. In fact, Black Americans are 60% more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes than white Americans. Black men are nearly twice as likely to die from diabetes than white men, and are two and a half times more likely to be hospitalized. But diabetes isn’t the only health issue facing Black men.

Aaron Perry:
You know, we face ’em from A to Z. We’re everywhere in that, you know, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, stroke. We’re starting to see a lot of lung cancer and prostate cancer.

Nathan Denzin:
Black men also have the second-lowest life expectancy of any group in America, at about 67 years. To take back control of his own health, Perry found a running group to help him train for the grueling race, which includes a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bicycle ride, and a marathon 26-mile run.

Aaron Perry:
And one of my mentors, Dino Lucas, said to me, he said, “Aaron, join our running club. We’ll get you to the finish line.”

Nathan Denzin:
By the time race day had come, Perry felt better than ever.

Aaron Perry:
I remember thinking as I’m getting ready to get in the water, “Aaron, you have taken yourself from poor control of your diabetes and within 360-plus days, you’ve transformed yourself into one of the fittest athletes in the world.”

Nathan Denzin:
Just over 16 and a half hours later, Perry became the first African-American diabetic to complete an Ironman. After the race, he started to get questions from diabetics around the world asking for health advice. That’s when Perry started to get serious about his peers’ health and founded the Rebalanced-Life Wellness Association.

Aaron Perry:
When I started doing this work here in Madison and Dane County, the average age of death was 51 years of age for Black men, and if that’s not a crisis, I don’t know what it is.

Nathan Denzin:
Around 2009, Perry had the idea to put free health clinics in Black barbershops to catch men for a quick screening as they came and went for their cuts.

Aaron Perry:
I did the research and back in the early 1900s, the barbershop was everything. The barbershop was where the pharmacist was at. That was where the doctor was at, and so I looked at that and I thought, “How can we bring that full circle?”

Nathan Denzin:
Perry says cancellation rates for barbershop appointments is less than 1%, a far cry from the high cancellation rates clinics see from Black men.

Reggie Jackson:
The fact that we’re not treated the same when we go to the doctor, we don’t receive the same level of care.

Nathan Denzin:
Reggie Jackson educates people about diversity. He says that Black men can be reluctant to see a doctor because of experiences where medical professionals didn’t take their concerns seriously.

Reggie Jackson:
A lot of doctors assume that, well, if I give this Black person a specific protocol to follow because of this condition they have, well, they’re not gonna follow it anyway, so I’m not gonna even put them into that space.

Nathan Denzin:
A barbershop, on the other hand.

Aaron Perry:
All of these guys, they trust their barbers. They trust them with their life, they trust them with their kids’ lives.

Nathan Denzin:
So he started writing grants to the state government, asking for seed money to jumpstart the idea, but that idea took time to catch on.

Aaron Perry:
Keep in mind, I’m a former cop. I came into the barbershop saying, “I want to help you get healthy.” You know, that was not well-received. It took me quite a few years.

Nathan Denzin:
Then in 2016, after being denied another round of state grants, SSM Health decided to give Perry’s idea a shot. The first barbershop to get a clinic: JP Hair Design in Madison. His idea was simple. In the extra office space JP had available, Perry would set up and catch men as they finished their haircut. Guys could get blood pressure screenings, flu shots, diabetes, glucose, and cholesterol testing, all for free.

Aaron Perry:
So we literally have changed the culture in the barbershops on how the conversations go. It’s no longer sports and politics; it’s health, sports, and politics.

Nathan Denzin:
Perry now has clinics in four Madison-area barbershops, which he says reaches about 30% of the Black men in Dane County.

Erin Hall:
The initiative that we’re working on is to try to bring health care to as many people as possible.

Nathan Denzin:
Erin Hall owns Resilient Hair Designs and says he’s dedicated to Perry’s vision for health care.

Aaron Perry:
It’s bringing health care back into the community. We’re taking it away from the clinic and hospital walls, and we’re bringing it back into the community where it belongs.

Nathan Denzin:
Along with the barbershops, Perry started his own health center next to JP Hair Design that can do more for patients than a small clinic could.

Nurse:
Thank you.

Patient:
Thank you. Appreciate it.

Nathan Denzin:
The clinic’s trained nurses work with men to get them healthy.

Aaron Perry:
What we tell them right up front, as of today, whatever’s going on with you, we’re gonna stabilize you. You will not get worse. You’re going to get better from this point on. If it’s a concern with housing, we wanna help them have housing. If a concern with, you know, whether it’s you know, relationships, we are gonna have them connected with a mental health counselor.

Nathan Denzin:
Even with the clinics and barbershops and his standalone health center, Perry wants to take his idea further. The next step, opening a clinic in Madison’s Second Baptist Church.

Aaron Perry:
The culture with the Black community, you know, we are naturally, you know, a faith-based people, you know, and the majority go to church.

Nathan Denzin:
The clinic opens in the fall of 2023 to serve the community on Sundays, though Perry says more days may be added as needed.

Aaron Perry:
We want these neighborhoods to be health villages. We want them to be places where low income and uninsured people can still have access to care, and by bringing this back into the community such as churches, barbershops, and free clinics, that is what we’re hoping to achieve.

Nathan Denzin:
By combining all three, Perry is launching what he calls Brother Care Health, a health care model designed to operate in underserved neighborhoods.

Aaron Perry:
When you walk out your front door, you should be able to walk out your front door and see health in your community.

Nathan Denzin:
While Perry is working on seeing health in Dane County communities, he says he’s given advice to people all over the country, including places like Maryland, California, and Washington, D.C.

Aaron Perry:
This model has been replicated all across the United States, you know, and it started right here, so we’re proud of that.

Nathan Denzin:
For Here & Now, I’m Nathan Denzin.