December 13, 1999 (1)

 

 

KU Medical Center’s Mobile Medical Unit To 

Finish Southeast Kansas Health Study Respiratory 

Evaluations In Independence On December 16 and 17

Evaluations to be held in mobile unit located

at parking lot of Independence Memorial Hall.

KANSAS CITY, KAN. — On December 16 and 17, investigators from The University of Kansas Medical Center will be in Independence, Kansas, to finish the first of two rounds of respiratory health medical evaluations of individuals from Chanute, Fredonia, Independence, Coffeyville, and Sedan, who agreed to participate in a one-year respiratory health medical evaluation for the Southeast Kansas Health Study.   KU Medical Center is conducting the EPA-funded study to investigate possible health effects related to the operation of four commercial hazardous waste burners and other emission sources located in southeast Kansas.  Independence is the fifth of the five study communities that the medical unit has visited during November and December.

Fifty people from each study community were invited to participate in the medical evaluations.  Those individuals have received letters of invitation during the past two months.  “We did not meet the 50-person goal in any of the five communities,” reports H. William Barkman, M.D., who is principal investigator of the study and director of the Center for Environmental and Occupational Health at KU Medical Center.  “However, we have been able to pick up some of the people we missed in the other communities and hope that we’ll still hear from a few more before we finish the evaluations on Friday,” said Barkman.

The mobile medical unit will be parked in the parking lot of Independence Memorial Hall, located at Pennsylvania and Locust Streets, on Thursday and Friday, December 16 and 17.  It will arrive in Independence late Wednesday afternoon, December 15, so that it can be set up and ready for the first evaluations by 8 o’clock Thursday morning.

KU Medical Center staff will call those individuals who agreed to participate in the medical evaluations and let them know the location of the unit and their appointment time.  When participants come in, they will be asked to read and sign a consent form, complete a health history, and undergo pulmonary function testing and a brief physical examination (including a blood pressure check and listening to the heart and lungs).  The medical evaluation will take place once at the beginning of the data collection year (November/December 1999) and again at the end of the year (October/November 2000).

The evaluation is designed to examine, during a one-year period, the effects of air quality on people who have a history of wheezing, asthma, or emphysema.  Individuals invited to participate in the medical evaluation were randomly selected from a database built of individuals who responded to the recent health questionnaires sent to residents in the five communities, and from data collected on hospital emergency room visits for respiratory illness in those communities. 

The mobile medical unit is an 18-wheel tractor-trailer that is fully equipped with examining rooms, phlebotomy (blood drawing) capability, audiometry, mammography, X-ray, and pulmonary function equipment.  The 53-foot trailer is red, white, and blue with a huge jayhawk on either side and on the end of it.  “It’s hard to miss,” Barkman notes.

Residents who have questions about the letters, the medical evaluations, or the study should call the Southeast Kansas Health Study project office at its toll-free number, 877/511-2167.  The e-mail address is mwalker3@kumc.edu.