Hucksters for Health

Redhaired, crew-cut Billy Newell, 6, was having the time of his life. First he picked up a foot-long toothbrush and used it to clean an oversized set of false teeth, following instructions on proper brushing procedures supplied by a dental technician. Then he tried to apply the same technique on his own teeth. Using a regular child's toothbrush, he began brushing vigorously, trying to remove every trace of a sweet red wafer handed him a moment before by the technician. "It tastes like candy!" he yelled to a screaming crowd of balloon-carrying children, as pink foam from the brushing streamed over his sunburned chest.

Billy was not the only one fascinated by the combination circus and Chautauqua lecture that last week was playing Zanesville, Ohio, a small (pop. 39,000) city on the edge of Appalachia. Many of his friends and classmates spent hours assembling and disassembling Rufus, a life-size plastic model of a human body with removable heart, lungs, kidneys and brain. Adults, meanwhile, strolled through displays devoted to family planning, sanitation and cancer detection, lined up at booths for tests to detect diabetes and lung disease and learned how to recognize incipient heart trouble.

The week-long happening that attracted their attention was a mobile health fair, an educational road show that is expected to visit six communities before the end of summer. Sponsored by the United Presbyterian Church, the fair was first conceived in 1966, when a truck loaded with displays and carrying a volunteer staff including physicians traveled to isolated communities throughout Appalachia. Since then the program has been steadily expanded. This summer, five mobile health fairs are touring rural areas in New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, upstate New York, Oklahoma and Arkansas, as well as Appalachia. Stopping in communities for a week at a time, they provide the townsfolk with a new understanding of what they can do to preserve their health.

The units arrive in a town in large, brightly painted vans and set up their show with the efficiency of oldtime carnival hands. Recorded rock music pounds through the fairground to attract crowds, and balloons emblazoned HEALTH IS HAPPINESS are given away to children.

Meanwhile, the mobile teams get down to business. Each traveling unit includes a doctor, a dentist or hygienist and, if possible, a nutritionist, all of whom pay their own expenses. Some medical services, such as eye and dental examinations, tests for high blood pressure and other common medical problems, are available. The emphasis is on prevention rather than treatment. "We do not treat people here," explains the Rev. Judith Cook, a Presbyterian minister and registered nurse who heads the Appalachian program. "We want people to know what health care is all about, what it has to offer, and why it is important."

The modern medicine shows seem to be accomplishing their purpose. Reaction to the health fairs has been almost uniformly favorable among citizens and local health authorities. Moreover, in several communities the fairs have had a lasting impact in stimulating the establishment of clinics in once doctorless areas. Inspired by a recent health fair, for example, a community organization in the tiny (pop. 1,100) coal-mining town of Evarts, Ky., worked with the University of Kentucky Medical School to establish a clinic. Three small communities in the impoverished area along the Kentucky-Tennessee border have already succeeded in attracting their first modern health-care facilities as a result of similar enthusiasm generated by the fairs.

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