NewsJan | 24 | 2025
Pressure Check: Testing a Unique Community-Based Approach to Managing High Blood Pressure
It’s a sunny afternoon at the In the Cut barbershop on Tremont Street just outside the Roxbury Crossing T Stop.
The customers inside are a mix of locals and college students coming in to get haircuts, shaves and beard trims and to swap stories with the barbershop staff.
There’s also something you don’t typically see in an inner-city barbershop—a clinical research coordinator from Mass General Brigham who is offering to take blood pressure readings for customers while they wait for a cut.
The coordinator is part of a research study called Pressure Check, which is being conducted by four healthcare systems—including Mass General Brigham—in partnership with local communities.
The goal of the study is to identify the best way to manage high blood pressure, or hypertension, in high-risk populations that may face challenges in accessing medical care. Read more.
About Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The Mass General Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. MGH is a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system.