Cure: Tell us about the inspiration for Oben Health — why did you start this company?
Peter Njongwe: Oben Health came about because of my journey. Oben was my brother’s name, and I wanted to pay homage to him. A few years ago, he passed away at the age of 36 from hypertension. He went to bed and never woke up. What's haunted me to this day is the fact that if his blood pressure had been screened, he could still be alive. How could someone so young die from something so preventable?
Cure: That’s awful. How common is it that someone young like your brother would die of this condition?
Njongwe: This happens at exponential rates in marginalized, underserved communities. A recent analysis out of Washington DC showed that people in one neighborhood are living 16 years less than the national average. That's insane. And that’s just a microcosm of what's going on in similar communities nationwide.
Cure: So, what is your vision for how to help others avoid the same fate?
Njongwe: We all know we have a health equity problem in this country, and there's a ton of people who don't have access to care. Our vision is to improve access to care by moving it to places where people feel like they belong.
Cure: How does Oben Health work?
Njongwe: We train and certify barbers to help facilitate care in their spaces. We built an AI platform to power all community-based care workflows. We've automated report generation, care coordination and care management, all using AI.
Cure: How are you training barbers to facilitate health care?
Njongwe: We built a curriculum with the Cut Hypertension Program at Roots Community Health Center in the San Francisco Bay Area. We pay the barbers and stylists to take part in that training, where we teach them the basics of healthcare coaching, such as how to engage in conversation.
Cure: Walk us through how it happens — when someone goes in to get a haircut, how does talk of blood pressure even come up?
Njongwe: Well, the barbers are not going to ask someone new to the shop because you have yet to have a relationship with that person. That would be a weird question to ask someone you’re seeing for the first time. So, one of the things we asked the barbers is, how many times do you need to see this client before you could feel comfortable approaching them about this? The barbers tell us the first two visits are just the getting-to-know-you phase. But by the third visit, you're building a relationship. It means this is a place where that person feels safe and comfortable, and where they want to hang out. So, at that point, when they’re in that chair, they’ve already talked about so many personal things and it’s not that weird if a barber might say, “You know what, I just started to do this program and it's been helpful to a lot of people. When’s the last time you had your blood pressure taken?” It’s very casual and conversational. It’s about making it feel relatable as opposed to preaching. We've seen that approach to be very effective — we’ve found that clients are not opposed to talking to their barbers about this. Some clients say, “Wow, thank you so much, I didn't think about this. Thank you for providing the education that I needed.”
Cure: Where have you started to put this into action?
Njongwe: We started our work in barber shops in the Bay Area. We have 17 barber shops and 30 barbers/stylists through our partnership with Roots. What we're observing is that most of the patients coming to the barbershops have Stage 2 hypertension or above, which means they’re maybe only a few months away from having a significant incident. Some haven't been to a primary care provider in two or more years. They haven't had their blood pressure taken. That's where we're starting to make a difference. This is why the work is important — most people in these communities simply don't go to primary care physicians. They lack access and have many barriers like taking time off work, transportation, etc.
Cure: What is the cost to your retailer to have this in their shop?
Njongwe: There’s no cost to them, and they actually get paid. That's why we train them. When you're a certified community health worker in California, you get paid $26 for every 30-minute interaction for screening and providing patient education. We charge a monthly fee to the health insurance companies for our service, which is to identify, screenand enroll patients. Because the insurance companies need to reach these patients, we’re helping to close that gap.
Cure: What have you learned from applying for the Cure Xchange Challenge?
Njongwe: Going through this process has enabled us to talk about the ethics of the technology we’re building. How are we structuring the data? How do we ensure that the data and the language models we’re building are equitable? How do we account for bias and build a culturally congruent platform for the people we serve? How do we ensure we're using AI for good as we build it? Ethics are something we take very seriously. As we expand the platform, the people at Cure would be resources that could help us answer these questions.
Cure: If you were to be one of the Cure Xchange Challenge winners, what would that mean to you personally and your company?
Njongwe: Of course, when you start anything as an entrepreneur, there are challenges. But like I said, this company is deeply personal, and this is my life's work. I’m on a mission to ensure that what happened to Paul doesn't happen to anyone else. I saw the devastation that had on my family — he left two kids and a wife behind. I know how difficult it is. So if we win, it will mean that we'd be able to save lives and impact families.
Cure: What would it mean to be part of the New York bio community?
Njongwe: The New York space is important. The Bronx has one of the highest concentrations of barber shops in the country, one of the largest communities of immigrants, and huge concentrations of managed care organizations. It's a great market for us to test our solution and prove that it works. Like they say, if you make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.