This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语健康报道。
A neighborhood barbershop might seem to some Americans like a thing of the past. Today men often get their hair cut at the same salons as women.
社区理发店对有些美国来说是一个久远的东西。今天，男士通常和女士一样在美发沙龙剪发。
But the traditional barbershop still holds a special place in black culture. A barbershop is a place of trust where men can talk about things they might not want women to hear. This is why black-owned barbershops increasingly offer more than just a haircut. Men also receive health education and testing that could save their life.
但传统的理发店在黑人文化中仍占据特殊地位。理发店是男士谈论一些不想女士听到的事情的一个可以信赖的场所。这就是黑人拥有的理发店不仅仅提供剪发服务的原因。在这里男士还接受一些可以救命的健康教育和检查。
Right now a program called the Black Barbershop Health Outreach Program is traveling to fifty cities across the United States. A doctor started the program in California in two thousand seven. It tests men for diabetes, high blood pressure and other conditions, and provides information about how to stay healthy.
目前，一个名为黑人理发店健康扩展计划的项目正在美国50个州进行。2007年一名医生在加州启动了这个项目。该项目为男士检查糖尿病、高血压和其他健康状况，同时提供保健信息。
Black men are three times more likely than white men in the United States to die from high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. They are also more likely to get diabetes.
在美国，黑人死于高血压的可能性是白人的三倍，他们也更易患糖尿病。
A new study has examined the barbershop health-care model in Dallas, Texas. The study involved about one thousand three hundred customers at seventeen black barbershops.
一项新的研究调查了德克萨斯州达拉斯市的理发店保健模式。该研究涉及了17家黑人理发店的大约1300名顾客。
Researchers had the barbers at eight of the shops continue to just give haircuts. The other barbers learned how to measure blood pressure and offered it with every haircut.
研究人员让8家理发店的理发师继续只提供剪发服务，其它理发师则学习如何量血压，并为每位剪发的顾客量血压。
If a customer had a high blood pressure, the barber would intervene. The customer would be urged to see a doctor. If the man did not have a doctor, then a visit to one would be set up. Customers who went to a doctor would get their next haircut free of charge.
如果顾客有高血压，理发师就会进行干预，劝告顾客去看医生。如果这位顾客没有医生，那么就会安排一位医生前往。去看过医生的顾客下次剪发免费。
The study lasted ten months. All of the men had their blood pressure taken at the start. They also received educational materials about hypertension.
这项研究历时十个月。一开始，所有男士都量了血压，同时他们还得到一些关于高血压的教材。
The study found that blood pressure rates decreased at the shops where the barbers intervened and also at those where they did not. But the difference was in the amount.
研究发现，所有理发店的高血压患病率都有所降低。区别只是在患病率数值上。
Twenty percent of the men who were urged to see a doctor got their blood pressure down to a healthy level. So did only eleven percent of the men who just got haircuts.
20%的被劝告去看医生的男士血压下降到健康水平，而只剪发的男士仅有11%血压恢复正常。
Researchers from the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles did the study, reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Doctor Ronald Victor, the study leader, says barbers historically were members of the medical profession. So he thinks it makes a lot of sense for today's barbers to act as "health care extenders" by sharpening their skills.
来自洛杉矶市Cedars-Sinai心脏研究所的研究人员进行了这项研究，研究结果发表在《内科学文献》上。该研究负责人罗纳德·维克多医生称，理发店一向是是医疗行业的组成部分。因此他认为，今天的理发师通过强化他们的技术，充当“编外保健人员”很有意义。