Alexandra Hughes, a doctoral candidate at Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington (SPH-B), is digging deep into the potential for impactful health interventions between salon professionals and their clients in Indiana.
Studying in the Department of Applied Health Science (AHS) with a focus on sexual and reproductive health, Hughes was recently awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) F31 grant of $50,114 to fund the research project entitled, “Expanding HPV-Related Cancer Prevention Into Salons: Leveraging Trusted Community Settings to Improve Vaccination in Rural and Health Professional Shortage Areas.” This type of grant is awarded to predoctoral students with supervised research training in specific health-related areas supporting their degree aspirations.
“I’ve been working with salon professionals, including estheticians, cosmetologists, and barbers, since my master’s program,” says Hughes. “As a 2025 American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association (ASTDA) Summer Research Fellow, I have been interviewing estheticians across the country about their potential role in sexual health promotion and STI referrals.”
In 2024, Hughes helped conduct a survey that found roughly 80 percent of 408 licensed salon professionals in Indiana* thought they had interactions with victims of intimate partner violence or sex trafficking. Since then, Hughes has partnered with former Chair of AHS and her mentor, Eric Walsh-Buhi, who has done extensive research on the often-surprising role skin care professionals play in the health of their clients. Walsh-Buhi was Hughes’ sponsor for the NIH grant to extend her work with ASTDA on HPV-related cancer prevention through vaccination and cervical cancer screening in salons and barbershops across the state.
“Receiving an NIH F31 award is a tremendous accomplishment and a testament to Alexandra’s promise as an independent public health researcher,” shares Walsh-Buhi. “It is particularly meaningful in the current funding environment: submitting a strong proposal does not guarantee a favorable review, and even a favorably reviewed proposal is not guaranteed funding—but Alexandra’s proposal earned both. I am incredibly proud of her and excited to see where this work leads.”
Walsh-Buhi also serves as Hughes’ associate editor in her concurrent role this year as a student editor for the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH), where she is responsible for managing the editorial and peer review process for manuscripts that come her way. Hughes is one of only five doctoral students chosen nationwide for this role in the 2026-27 academic year.
“I like staying busy and having a full schedule, and I have always been good at time management,” says Hughes. “As doctoral students, we often have to balance a large amount of work and responsibilities, but Eric always says to me, ‘The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.’ This has really grounded me.”
Hughes says work on her F31 will start with a survey of salon professionals within the state to assess their willingness to deliver brief HPV vaccination messages as a strategy for cancer prevention. This would include training on how to communicate these messages effectively without accidentally diagnosing or offending their clientele.
Down the road, Hughes hopes that a connection between the salon professional and a local healthcare provider in the area can be established for any necessary referrals.
“These relationships between salon professionals and their clients are regular, usually reoccurring every few weeks,” says Hughes. “We don’t want them to diagnose but encourage the idea of ‘if you see something, say something.’ Being able to refer clients to the broader healthcare system has such untapped potential, but we really need to nail down the training that goes into it.”
Read more stories on how SPH-B students, faculty and staff are breaking new ground at go.iu.edu/48bx.
*Hughes-Wegner, A. T., DeMark, M. R., Seigfried-Spellar, K. C., & DeMaria, A. L. (2024). Empowering Salon Professionals: A Needs Assessment to Understand Training Preferences and Strategies for Addressing Sex Trafficking and Violence. Journal of Human Trafficking, 1–16. https://doi-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.1080/23322705.2024.2409619