Throughout much of our nation’s history, people who lived out in the country were healthier than those in urban areas.
"Something changed somewhere around in the 1980s. What started happening was in the rural areas, life expectancy started lagging behind," said Vasan Ramachandran, MD, who wants to know why. He’s the founding dean of the University of Texas School of Public Health San Antonio.
He leads what’s called the RURAL Cohort Study, where they bring the lab right to the often isolated communities they want to research.
"We designed a 52-foot trailer which has the fastest CT scanner in the country," he said. "It has a cardiac ultrasound machine that uses artificial intelligence, that's got a mobile laboratory that uses artificial intelligence, and then we go and park it at the community doorstep."
They get to know the people who live there and learn about medical and non-medical challenges that may be impacting their health.
"We take rural counties which are relatively healthy and rural counties where the mortality rates are very high, and we examine both sets of participants to inform us," he said. "Why is it that some people do better in some rural areas and others don't?"
They plan to use what they learn, now and in years to come, to improve the health and wellbeing of those they are studying.
Science & Medicine is a collaboration between TPR and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio that explores how scientific discovery in San Antonio advances the way medicine is practiced everywhere.
