Taking care of one’s health is often the first casualty in communities struggling with job losses, loss of health insurance and pressing concerns like child care, housing, food insecurity and lack of transportation.
To improve access to healthcare, Texas Health’s Wellness for Life Mobile Health Program has for several years been going inside underserved communities across North Texas, providing lifesaving early detection and chronic disease management services.
Though the pandemic forced the program to push pause in early March, it resumed operations in mid-June with new workflow and cleaning and personal protective equipment protocols in place to maximize safety. Currently, the program serves an average of 200 people each month.
The program is also lending a hand to the DFW COVID-19 Prevalence Study, a collaboration between Texas Health Resources and UT Southwestern Medical Center to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on our community.
The program has repurposed an older mobile health unit and dedicated one of its drivers to help test study participants in communities where essential workers and people at high risk for the virus reside. It is also dispatching one of its three newer mobile health units to businesses participating in the study to provide easy and convenient testing of essential workers.
As of this month, the mobile health units have completed 27.6% of employer participant testing across Dallas/Fort Worth and 10.6% of community participants in Tarrant County.
And now the program will be helping to provide vaccination sites for those in underserved and rural communities.
Donations to help support the Prevalence Study or the Mobile Health Program can be made through the Texas Health Resources Foundation. Donors can fill out this online form and designate in the “specify program” box where they want their gift to go.
Individuals in Dallas and Tarrant counties interested in participating in the DFW COVID-19 Prevalence Study can get more information here or call toll-free at 833-947-2577. Businesses interested in participating in the study should email dfwcovidstudy@utsouthwestern.edu.