Hairdressing is associated with scalp disease in African schoolchildren

Abstract

We found associations between hairstyle and disease in our population of schoolchildren. AKN appears to be associated with frequently cut natural hair and TA with relaxed hair. These associations need further study for purposes of disease prevention.

Trichotillomania and Traction Alopecia

“…Importantly, in a large cohort of African adults in Cape Town, almost one-third of women had findings consistent with TA on scalp examination [35]. Of note, 17.1% of South African schoolgirls had TA, with increasing prevalence rates from the first year of school to the last year of high school [36]. A similar rate (18.4%) was observed in another study examining a population of 201 African American girls from the United States [38].…”

“…Most of the population-based studies concerning the prevalence of TA originate from South Africa [35][36][37]. Overall, TA was found to be more common in females compared to males and in women compared to girls, presumably due to a longer history of hairdressing [37].…”

“…Although TA is more prevalent among females of African ancestry, it has been described in a wide range of populations, including nurses, ballerinas, Sikh boys and men, to name a few [30][31][32][33][34]. Research has convincingly demonstrated that certain habitual practices of hairstyling are implicated in the pathogenesis of TA [35][36][37][38][39].…”

Health risks of the clean-shave chiskop haircut

“…[1,2] We obtained approval from the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, permission from the Cape Town Central Health District, Western Cape, and informed consent from participants. Our aim was to compare the prevalences of haircut-associated bleeding and FKN with existing Langa population data.…”

“…Folliculitis keloidalis nuchae (FKN), also incorrectly called acne keloidalis, is shaving-bump-like keloids on the back of the head (Fig. 1); the condition predominantly affects black males (5.4% of high-school boys v. 0% of girls; [2] 10.5% of men v. 0.3% of women [1] ). We had an unexpected finding during a population study; 32% of male participants described having experienced haircut-associated bleeding, [3] which may be significant in our country with its high burden of HIV infection.…”