KU Medical Center to Hold Public Information Meeting

 in Coffeyville on Southeast Kansas Health Study  

 

KANSAS CITY, Kan. - A research team from the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) and the University of Kansas (KU) will visit Coffeyville, Kansas, April 7 to host a community information meeting on a health study that the Medical Center is conducting for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  The meeting will be held from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Coffeyville Community College Theater, 400 West 11th Street, and will focus on answering questions and addressing concerns that Coffeyville and Montgomery County residents may have about the study. 

The study’s purpose is to look for possible health effects related to the operation of four commercial hazardous waste burners and other potential sources of environmental releases located in the Southeast Kansas communities of Chanute, Coffeyville, Fredonia, and Independence.  Community involvement in the design and performance of the study is a major objective of this important project.  To achieve that end, information meetings will be held in each study community so that researchers will have an opportunity to meet with residents, hear their concerns, discuss with them different aspects of the study, and take into consideration the information they gain from these meetings in developing the study’s final protocol.

The two-and-one-half-year study, which began September 1, 1997, has three parts--respiratory health, cancer incidence and mortality rates, and environmental monitoring and analysis.  Residents of the study communities will be asked not only to help in developing the study’s final protocol, but also to participate in a health survey and assessment that are key to the project’s respiratory health component.

Earlier in the day, researchers will meet with City Manager Leroy Alsup, city commissioners, and other city and county officials to discuss the study.  Researchers have presented the project’s draft protocol to the mayors, city managers, and city commissioners of Chanute, Independence, Fredonia, and Sedan.  The city of Sedan will serve as the study’s control community.  During the next two months, study investigators will return to Fredonia and Sedan to hold community information meetings.

KUMC researchers who will attend the Coffeyville meetings include H. William Barkman, M.D., M.S.P.H., the study’s principal investigator; Mary Brothers, M.D.; William Jewell, M.D.; John S. Neuberger, Dr. P.H.; and J. Thomas Pierce, Ph.D., C.I.H.  KU researchers who will attend the meetings include Dennis D. Lane, Ph.D., leader of the study’s environmental monitoring work; Richard Baldauf, M.S., and Ray E. Carter Jr., M.S.

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