Abstract
Little is known about hair loss associated with wearing the hijab, a religious head covering worn by Muslim women. We performed a single-center analysis to investigate the association between various forms of non-scarring alopecia and wearing the hijab. This study included 125 patients who wore the hijab and 40 race/ethnicity-matched women who did not wear the hijab. Among the 165 total patients diagnosed between January 2015 and March 2022, 71 had telogen effluvium, 78 had female pattern hair loss, and 16 had traction alopecia. We found patients who wore the hijab had a younger mean age of alopecia onset than patients who did not wear the hijab (31.5 vs. 37.3 years; P = 0.02). Our study suggests that vitamin D deficiency (OR 4.1; 95% CI 1.2–14.1; P = 0.02) and seborrheic dermatitis (OR 2.9; 95% CI 1.1–8.1; P = 0.03) may significantly impact the development of telogen effluvium in patients who wear the hijab. Targeting these risk factors among patients who wear the hijab may be considered to prevent hair loss.
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Data are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.
References
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Gordon Jacobsen from Henry Ford Health for statistical support and Karla D. Passalacqua, PhD, at Henry Ford Health for editorial assistance.
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Conceptualization: MSC, LS, and TFM; Methodology: MSC and TFM; Data curation: MSC and LM; Statistical analysis: GJ; Interpretation of data: All authors; Writing—original draft preparation: MSC; Writing—review and editing: All authors and KDP; Supervision: TFM.
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This research study was conducted retrospectively from data obtained for clinical purposes. A waiver of informed consent and HIPAA authorization was granted from Henry Ford Health’s institutional review board (15114).
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Ceresnie, M.S., Mohney, L., Seale, L. et al. The development of non-scarring alopecia in women who wear the hijab. Arch Dermatol Res 315, 2947–2949 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00403-023-02713-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00403-023-02713-3