November 23, 1999 (1)

 

KU Medical Center’s Mobile Medical Unit 

To Visit Coffeyville on November 29 and 30

 

Medical unit staff will conduct respiratory health medical evaluations

  on invited participants as part of the Southeast Kansas Health Study.

 

 

KANSAS CITY, KAN. — The University of Kansas Medical Center’s mobile medical unit will visit Coffeyville, Kansas, on November 29 and 30 to conduct respiratory health medical evaluations of individuals in that community 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, Kansas, has agreed to serve as the study’s control community.

 

 

“The unit was in Fredonia and Sedan on November 18, 19, and 20,” reported 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.  “Those are two of the five communities participating in the study,” he continued.  “We invited 50 people from each study community to participate in the medical evaluations.  Those individuals have received letters of invitation during the past six weeks.  Although we have not met the 50-person goal in Coffeyville, we hope that we’ll still hear from some of those people before we finish up the evaluations on Tuesday,” Barkman said.

 

The mobile medical unit will be stationed at the Memorial Hall parking lot on Eleventh Street, between Elm and Maple Streets, during Monday and Tuesday, November 29 and 30.  It will arrive in Coffeyville late Sunday afternoon, November 28, so that it can be set up and ready for the first evaluation by 8 o’clock Monday morning.

 

“Southeast Kansas Health Study 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, 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 for respiratory illness in those communities.

 

The mobile medical unit is tentatively scheduled to visit Chanute on December 9 and 10 and Independence on December 16 and 17.  “If someone is unable to make their appointment in Coffeyville on November 29 or 30, then they can come to Independence  on December 16 or 17,” Barkman noted.

 

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, ad 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