<International Circulation>: What do you think is the role of lay people， i.e. non-professionally medically trained personnel for cardiovascular disease prevention?

      《国际循环》：您怎样认识非专业人员（没有接受过医学相关培训）在心血管疾病预防中所起的作用？

　　Dr Ferdinand: It is interesting. In the African American community here in New Orleans， we actually started， along with colleagues in Baltimore， the idea of using barbers shops and beauty shops as hypertension control centers. There has been a recent report in the press during this American Heart Association meeting， that barber shops can now be blood pressure control centers. Here is the idea. For chronic diseases such as hypertension， diabetes and high cholesterol， people need to understand those disease processes. We now have tools， for checking blood pressure and cholesterol and glucose levels. We now have tools that don’t require a trained physician to institute. With appropriate training， a community lay person who does not necessarily have a medical degree or even a nursing degree， can check blood pressure and learn how to do a finger stick for glucose and cholesterol. We believe that community health advocates， which is a term that is used， a lay person who is taught how to determine cardiovascular risk， how to check blood pressure， how to do a finger stick for glucose and cholesterol， that lay person can be a first line of defense for the control of chronic diseases. The tools are in place， but the training is paramount. It is not reasonable to take cuffs and so on and place them in beauty shops， barber shops and supermarkets. These atypical sources of screening can be utilized only in trained hands. The Association of Black Cardiologists has what we call Community Health Advocates， CHAT， and we have a one day program where we actually institute training related to how to do these particular interventions， how to talk to people about heart disease and hypertension and stroke， how to measure the blood pressure and what the numbers mean. I think that is a great first line of defense. Certainl