Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/759603
t m c » p u l s e | d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 6 17 I n the evenings after work, Francisco Garza and his family have a new tradition. After a healthy dinner at home, they head outside to a row of bicycles parked under a small grove of trees. The Texas sky yawns pink and orange and, one by one, Garza and his wife, sons, daughters and daughter-in-law hop on. Soon, they are speeding down the driveway past rows of tires stacked with wood and clay- cracked farmland that spans the horizon. They are racing against the sunset, and right now, the Garza family is winning. Francisco Garza has Type 2 diabetes. Less than a year ago, he spent his nights couch- surfing before turning in early. Now, he likes to say he's traded beers for bananas and tells everyone who will listen the grave importance of keeping their sugars under control. "This illness," Garza said in Spanish, "is a slow death. If we don't figure out how to fight it ourselves, we won't survive. We won't survive in good condition, and my family depends on me being well. I don't want to be a burden to my family in the future." Garza owes his health to his own hard work and grit, but also to the decision of one couple who moved from Lyons, France to Brownsville, Texas in 2001. Susan Fisher-Hoch, M.D., and her husband, Joseph McCormick, M.D., had been working in exotic locales around the globe—Pakistan, Africa, Brazil, France— addressing public health crises, particularly viral hemorrhagic fevers. But they had been aching to return home and hoped they could apply their expertise to a more local community in need. When the opportunity arose to start a new regional school of public health for The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), they immediately headed to the southernmost tip of the second largest state in the nation. "We've always worked in mixed-culture, mixed-language settings, and we enjoy it," said McCormick, now the regional dean of the UTHealth School of Public Health in Brownsville. "When we decided to come here, we said, 'Let's set up our research program, but let's make it translate into real change in the community, a real opportunity for affecting the health of the community.'" Their first challenge was to determine the biggest health issues facing the region, which meant collecting raw data. Starting from scratch in 2003, they applied for a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant under what was then the new National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. They were awarded $7.5 mil- lion. With funding and resources in hand, the team descended upon the Rio Grande Valley, one house at a time. Going door-to-door, Fisher-Hoch, McCormick and their team created a local cohort for clinical research that has since grown to more than 4,500 individuals. "This needed to be a random sample of the population so we could really measure the prevalence of these conditions and chronic diseases," McCormick said. (continued) ON THE BORDER MOBILE MEDICINE S t o r y b y A l e x a n d r a B e c k e r • P h o t o g r a p h y b y C o d y D u t y Facing page: Brownsville residents participate in a morning workout class inside a local church. Right: A community health worker measures Francisco Garza's blood pressure in his kitchen in San Benito, Texas.