Awareness of the need to immediately call 911 improved. But knowledge of stroke risk factors - high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and smoking - did not.

The detection of two strokes by stylists was an unexpected benefit. The women involved did not want to be identified or discuss it.

The Hazel K. Goddess Fund for Stroke Research in Women paid for the program.

"I felt that it was much needed in an ethnic salon and the black community," said Dorothea Jones, owner of DJ's Image, a Cincinnati salon that participated.

"We come in contact with so many people and they can take it back to their families," said Jones, who also was motivated because her nephew suffered a stroke and had to go through rehabilitation.

"It's very promising," said Dr. Michael Sloan, a stroke specialist at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte who had no role in the study.

"We're trying to find ways to get the word out," and targeting beauty shop customers and workers seems ideal, he said. "They tell them gossip, their personal lives, their secrets. That type of rapport gives an opportunity" to share health tips, Sloan said.

Virgil Simons, head of the advocacy group Prostate Net, thought the same thing when he signed up hundreds of barbers to talk to customers about prostate cancer in 2004, to coincide with release of the movie "BarberShop 2." Its maker, MGM, helped finance the campaign.

"Not everybody goes to the doctor," Simons said in an interview last week. "The barber is someone they've seen, in many cases, since they were a kid. He's a pillar of the community, a business leader, a culturally credible communicator. While he's cutting hair, he can say, `Hey, when is the last time you had your PSA checked?'"

His project reached more than 10,000 men in its first year and now includes more than 800 barbers around the country. Other groups have used beauticians to raise awareness of breast cancer and mammograms.

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