Burnett School of Medicine Student Improving Mental Health One Barbershop At A Time

NEW ORLEANS – The buzz of hair clippers and the foot traffic of men, young and old, going in and out of Dennis Barbershop in New Orleans have been background noise to loud, and colorful, conversations for more than 60 years.

“You look good, you feel good. You feel good, you do good. That’s what we’re about,” says Barber Stan Norwood to about 20 Black men and their sons sitting in the shop as he cuts a patron’s hair.

Outside, a food truck is parked across the street with customers ordering plates to go. You can smell the creole seasonings and fried seafood in the air. Children are playfully walking home from school. This corridor of Freret Street in the historic Uptown New Orleans neighborhood is buzzing with vibrant colored and newly renovated businesses.

However, the modern construction surrounding the barbershop makes it look out of place. Its classic New Orleans shotgun-style building, red-white-and-blue barber’s pole and chipping white paint shows that the old building has weathered many storms. But the building adds character and charm to the street front. It’s sunny, breezy, and not a cloud in the sky. By New Orleans standards, the weather is perfect.

From the sidewalk you can hear Norwood’s baritone voice seeping through the creaky wooden walls of the barbershop. Inside, the mood is darker, serious, and much more intense.

His motivational speaking is part of a larger conversation about mental health for men of color. The focused look on the men’s faces as he speaks lets you know they are getting much more than a haircut on this Wednesday afternoon in late March.

“We just don’t go to a therapist we go to the barbershop, and this is a starting point,” Norwood said.

Oluwatomi Akingbola, a New Orleans native, is getting a haircut next to Norwood. The conversation among the guys weaved through such as self-confidence, mental health stigma, education, and Black men supporting other Black men. However, he remained quiet.

As his barber brushed the excess hair him and removed the barber’s cape from around his neck, he stood up and interjected.

“For me, the thing I see in my community here in New Orleans as well as in Philly is we have a problem with gun violence,” Akingbola said. “What are we doing about it? What’s the root and the cause of it? Why are we killing each other in the streets? That’s something I want us to talk about in the barbershop too.”

There’s a slight pause of silence. Norwood scans the room and gestures to a wall in the corner with pictures of his clients, cluttered and pinned together. Many are photos of clients on obituary programs from funeral services.

“I’ve lost 33 clients over the course of my tenure of cutting hair,” Norwood said.

He’s been cutting hair at the barbershop since 2007. We can’t hide, he added.

“We’ve gotten to a point where we’re numb to it. It’s not like we should be like, ‘Damn they killed him too,’ ” Norwood said. “That’s now where I am.”

Medical Student On A Mission

The authenticity and raw emotions of this conversation is one of many similar conversations Antonio Igbokidi, MS-4 at Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University, has been researching for four years.

Igbokidi, a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, who’s family is originally from Nigeria, arrived in Fort Worth at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU during the COVID-19 Pandemic in July 2020.

Even with social-distancing measures in place, he wanted to look good and feel good for his first class of medical school.

“I wanted a haircut to look good through Zoom during the COVID times,” Igbokidi said with a smile.

He ventured out, with a mask, to find a barber. That  action became the catalyst for his medical school research project, he would call the Barbershop Talk Therapy Project (BTTP).

Lake COMO House of Fades Barbershop in Fort Worth is where he heard frustration and pain being shared by men.

“They were complaining about feeling isolated, shame, guilt and all these different things with no outlet,” Igbokidi said.

After witnessing these conversations several times,  Igbokidi thought the required Scholarly Pursuit & Thesis (SPT) research project at the medical school would be a great way to find a solution.

“The SPT program is really important to give the students a basic understanding of research and to get them involved with doing the research themselves,” said SPT Director Michael Bernas, M.S.

Igbokidi’s study asked if implementing therapy-led focus groups in barbershops, as community-driven safe spaces, could effectively contribute to improving mental health outcomes for minority males, particularly in underserved communities such as Fort Worth.

Men’s mental health is a challenging public health issue, especially in communities of color. Men are 3.5 times more likely to commit suicide than women, according to a study published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) in April 2020.

Another study published by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) says that one in three men with daily feelings of anxiety or depression took medication for those feelings, and a little more than one-quarter talked to a mental health professional. Among men with daily feelings of anxiety or depression, 43% of non-Hispanic white men were more likely to have used either of these mental health treatments in comparison to 36% of non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic men.

Igbokidi had a personal interest in this project and psychiatry, which is a great starting point for research, Bernas said.

“That’s all part of research where you start from the very beginning with your question then work your way through to the analysis,” Bernas added.

The barber’s pole with its red-white-and-blue colors has medical origins that date back to the Middle Ages. Barbers could be surgeons, dentists, and even hygiene specialists, according to the National Barber Association. Barbershops have also been one of the cornerstones of the African American community since the early 19th century.

For Igbokidi, the barbershop has an emotional connection. His father, who passed away, was normally reserved and quiet, but would engage in conversation at the barbershop.

“When I think about my childhood and my dad, he spoke a lot more at the barbershop than he did at home,” Igbokidi said.

His research project began with a virtual panel he put together with Fort Worth ISD Family Action Center and Burnett School of Medicine faculty physicians. He invited men of color from Fort Worth to join him via Zoom for a discussion about mental health. Once pandemic restrictions eased in 2021, Igbokidi found an ally who gave him a space to hold in-person discussions.

Igbokidi’s barber, Landter Goodrich, owner of Lake Como House of Fades Barbershop, was skeptical at first but understood Igbokidi’s heart and mind were in the right place.

“He said I’m doing this to bring men together and have a safe space to talk about things that we’re not normally able to talk about,” Goodrich said.

Igbokdi developed a 26-question electronic survey that gauged a participant’s knowledge and accessibility to mental health resources in Fort Worth. Through BTTP, Igbokidi provided free haircuts to barbershop patrons during a 2-to-4-hour open discussion with a mental health professional. In the beginning, only a handful of people showed up, but he still held the discussion with whoever came.

“He’s putting himself out there,” Goodrich said. “I decided to use my connections in the community to encourage more people to come out.”

Igbokidi also found collaborators to help him expand services at the events. The Black Owned Businesses (BOB) of DFW connected him with entrepreneurs who helped spread the word. The Black Heart Association collaborated with him to offer free health screenings. Medical students from the Burnett School of Medicine’s chapter of the Student National Medical Association (SNMA), which is the oldest black medical student organization in the United States, volunteered to help with health screenings.

A year later Igbokidi, dozens of men, young and old, showed up to events in Dallas, Arlington, and Fort Worth’s Historic Stop 6 and COMO communities. The men shared emotional stories about relationships, job loss, police brutality, and issues with the legal system. He even brought free haircuts and mental health discussions to Fort Worth’s unhoused population.

In February 2023, nearly 100 people came out to the launch of the second year of in-person BTTP events. Igbokidi was awarded the 2023 Excellence in Public Health Award from the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service Physician Professional Advisory Committee. The awards program recognizes medical students who have done exceptional work in their local community promoting public health and disease prevention.

“It started with true collaboration with the community, and I think that’s why it’s worked out so well,” Igbokidi said.

He applied for grant-funding and received $10,000 from National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and $4,000 from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to take the initiative nationwide while collecting data along the way. The funding covers the cost of the barbers’ services so patrons can get free haircuts during the mental health discussions.

He’s held barbershop events in Washington, D.C.; Hartford, Connecticut; and New Orleans so far. Going through the process gives students an appreciation for research, Bernas said.

“He started from zero,” Bernas said. “When you’re going out into the community and you’re having other people join you in your research and getting funding it’s wonderful.”

‘Being a Listening Ear’

In March 2024, Igbokidi was in New Orleans during the SNMA’s 60^th Annual Medical Education Conference (AMEC). He had served as SNMA Chair of the Board of Directors this past year and was the host for the four-day event. While in town, he partnered with 100 Black Men in America, Inc., a nonprofit organization, to put on a BTTP event.

Dennis Sigur, who’s owned Dennis Barbershop in New Orleans for 46 years, opened his doors to Igbokidi for the event. He also had Rahn Kennedy Bailey, M.D., Chairman Department of Psychiatry at LSU School of Medicine, serve as the mental health professional to guide the discussion.

Casually dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, like he’s done in every BTTP discussion, Igbokidi stood in the center of the barbershop and introduced himself. He shared background about his research and opened the floor to the men to share whatever they might be feeling.

“This is a very good way to break the cycle and issue of stigma,” Dr. Bailey said. “If you have been exposed to trauma for example early in life and you don’t get a chance to address it professionally it may last the entirety of your life.”

Akingbola, who shared his frustrations with gun violence, is also an Emergency Medicine resident at University of Pennsylvania Health System’s Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. He was in town celebrating his birthday. He stopped in for a haircut, but got a whole lot more.

“Mental health goes into that conversation [on gun violence]. I work at a Level One Trauma Center and we see gun violence almost every day,” Akingbola said. “Unfortunately, what you see is that it affects young Black men disproportionately. I kind of wanted to put that into the conversation as well if we’re going to keep it real.”

Keeping it real and being a listening ear for clients is important to Norwood.

“Although sometimes it’s a lot, I have to be that ear for them,” Norwood said. “If they have the sense of comfort to come in here and talk to us, we have to be that.”

‘We need more.’

Igbokidi will begin his Psychiatry residency at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience this summer.

He presented his research project at the American Psychiatric Association’s Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The 26-question survey he created was given to barbershop patrons voluntarily regardless of if they received a free haircut or not. He had more than 200 participants and about 100 surveys were completed.

Fifty-nine percent of people who took the survey believed their barber is like a therapist and  talk to their barbers about sensitive topics they do not talk to anyone else about. Ninety-three percent of those surveyed felt more optimistic and less stressed after leaving the barbershop. Fifty-three percent said after attending a barbershop event, they probably or definitely would consider seeking a mental health provider. Fifty-seven percent felt more reassured about accessing mental health resources at the conclusion of the project.

Over the course of the research project, Igbokidi provided 500 free health screenings and 250 free haircuts. He plans to continue this initiative beyond medical school. This could be an opportunity for stakeholders and community leaders to make a difference, he said.

“What I keep hearing is we need more, we need more,” Igobokidi said. “Maybe this could be a platform and opportunity for us to spread to different parts of the country.”

Giving men of color across the country a space to freely discuss issues close to their hearts can make an impact. Igbokidi has done it for several years, so it shows sustainability, Dr. Bailey said.

“It’s heartwarming and his heart’s in the right place,” Dr. Bailey said. “It also points out that he is a young doctor going into psychiatry that understands what we do has as much impact on our communities as other areas of health care.”