The Launch of BEAUTY and Health
Kuala Lumpur, 11 August 2022 – The National Cancer Society of Malaysia (NCSM) together with Asia Cancer Forum (Japan) today announced the launch of BEAUTY (Bringing Education and Understanding to You) and Health, a community-based digitally driven intervention for the improvement of cancer-specific health knowledge, literacy and risk-reduction practices based within community barbershop and beauty salons in Malaysia for screenable male and female cancers and other Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).
Today, cancer is a leading health problem in Malaysia. More than 20,000 new cases are diagnosed every year and is one of the top 5 causes of death in the country today. Cancer control efforts are threatened by several issues, such as slow diagnosis, unequal access to care due to socioeconomic considerations, and high dropout in discontinuation of treatment. The COVID-19 epidemic has only made these problems worse.
Through the BEAUTY and HEALTH project, local barbershops and beauty salons will act as health communication platforms for cancer prevention and screening. These are places people go to regularly, and it often serves as communication platforms for male or female communities. Salons and barbershops also play a role in social activities on the positive side to assist people to live better lives. At the same time, digital technology has the function of encouraging people to change their behaviour, but it is only effective when it relates to communities in the real world. The goal of this project is to share the world view of creating a better community by fusing the community-based networks of local hair salons and barber shops with digital technologies.
The launch of the collaboration was officiated by Health Minister YB Khairy Jamaluddin in attendance of Dato’ Dr Saunthari Somasundaram, President of NCSM, Dr Norie Kawahara, Representative Director, Angelique Lewis, Senior Director of Access to Health, Sustainability, Astellas US LLC and Japanese Ambassador to Malaysia HE Katsuhiko Takahashi who supported the event virtually.