November 12, 1999

KU Medical Center’s Mobile Medical Unit Schedules Trip To 

Fredonia And Sedan As Part Of Southeast Kansas Health Study

Medical unit staff to conduct respiratory health medical 

evaluations of invited participants in two southeast 

Kansas communities during the week of November 15.

KANSAS CITY, KAN. — The University of Kansas Medical Center’s mobile medical unit will travel to Fredonia and Sedan during the week of November 15 to conduct respiratory health medical evaluations of individuals in those communities who agreed to participate in the one-year evaluation, which is part of the Southeast Kansas Health Study.  Commissioned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and being carried out by KU Medical Center, the study is directed at investigating possible health effects related to the operation of four commercial hazardous waste burners and other sources of emissions located in the communities of Chanute, Coffeyville, Fredonia, and Independence.  Sedan agreed to serve as the study’s control community.

“About 50 people (or a total of 250) in each of the five study communities were invited to participate in the medical evaluation,” said 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.  “They received letters of invitation during the past six weeks and were asked to return to us a pre-stamped and pre-addressed postcard enclosed with the letter indicating whether they wanted to participate in the evaluation.  Although we did not meet the 50-person goal for Fredonia and Sedan, we hope that we’ll still hear from some of those people who have not yet responded to our invitation before we finish with the evaluations in those communities,” Barkman noted.

 

The mobile medical unit will be located in the Fredonia Court House parking lot during  Thursday  and  Friday,  November  18  and  19.    It  will  arrive  in  Fredonia  late Wednesday afternoon, November 17, so that it can be setup and ready for evaluations by 8 o’clock Thursday morning.  

 

The unit will leave Fredonia late Friday afternoon and travel to Sedan, where it will  be located in the parking lot of Floyd’s Market on Main Street.  The unit will be ready for evaluations by 8 o’clock Saturday morning.  It will leave Sedan sometime late Saturday afternoon and return to The University of Kansas-Lawrence, where it is housed.

 

“Our staff will call those individuals who accepted the invitation to participate in the respiratory health medical evaluation and let them know the location of the unit and their appointment time,” Barkman said.  When participants come in, they will be asked to read and sign a consent form, complete a health history (using a short form of a standard respiratory health questionnaire), 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 1999) and again at the end of the year (October 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 in those communities for respiratory illness. 

 

The mobile medical unit is tentatively scheduled to visit Coffeyville, Chanute, and Independence during the last two days of November and in early-to-mid-December. 

 

KU Medical Center’s 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 is a highly visible vehicle,” points out Barkman.

 

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.