Idea to send: |
Topic | Health Care and Research |
Content | MAPS FOR HEALTHY OKLAHOMA
Make Oklahoma into a population-based resource for understanding the origins of disease and best routes to preventing or delaying disease and maintaining health. Following the strategy of Iceland and, much early, the Farmingham (Massachusetts) Heart Study begun in 1948, all Oklahomans would be offered the opportunity to join what would be a 30-year study. Medical, environmental, and family health histories would be taken, blood or mouth rinse DNA would be collected, medical records would be linked within families and with environmental information. Update would occur every other year, when enrollees would be given health education and guidance and some preventive screening, like cholesterol levels, BMI measurements, etc.
Many stakeholders would have to buy in; it would be a state/academic/private consortium, including the University health centers, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, Tribal Nations, Turning Point, the State Health Department, genealogy societies, informatics experts, professional associations, and ethicists. After startup, significant Federal research funding could expected, because the Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH has called for just such a study (Nature 2004;429:475).
The "Maps" moniker has gained public trust for the notion that, by pulling together for a lofty goal, Oklahomans can achieve high marks. Our sorry state of health can be reversed and the effort will contribute to the health of America, while bringing high professional and research jobs to the state. |
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