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Behind the wheel
As COVID wore on in 2020, Levy’s team rerouted the transit van, loaded with testing supplies and later vaccines, into Detroit neighborhoods, many of which housed older residents who are more vulnerable to COVID.
Levy’s van reached 32,523 people through 491 testing and 19 vaccination events in one year, according to a report the doctor published in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS One. The program grew to five mobile units that year.
The teams expanded into lipid testing and blood pressure measurement, lead testing and needle exchange programs, mental health and substance abuse disorder screening.
As the mercury hovered just above freezing in January this year, several of Levy’s staff, armed with nasal swabs and vaccines, ran between a mobile health unit and a line of vehicles and then warmed themselves by a portable gas heater.
“If we can get [residents] to stick around long enough, we can take their vital signs, height and weight. We put a pulse ox on them, and a blood pressure cuff,” said Alexander Molex, 22, the mobile health unit site leader that day.
If the blood pressure is too high, staff can set up a follow-up appointment with a primary care physician and connect them to programs for free medication and even transportation, he said. Many of the encounters, he said, are with residents who otherwise wouldn’t see a doctor.
Often, they’re not poor.
“Whenever we think of health disparities, we always think of the uninsured and those who are impoverished, but they’re not the only ones affected,” Levy said.
“You have a lot of people who are working in the manufacturing ecosystem, for instance, on an assembly line who are hourly employees. They may get health insurance or may not through their work, but they can’t leave work to go do a routine physical.”
At the Wright Museum’s 39th African World Festival in downtown Detroit earlier this summer, 20-year-old Wayne State University student Soneet Kapadia helped staff a health van.
The evening was festival-perfect — the smell of grilled food drifting along the sidewalks and music pumped by speakers into the early-evening air. Passersby carried oversized pineapple drinks.
“We go where we can reach people. We hit the problem at the source,” Kapadia said.
Nearby, Jose Gomez was collecting blood from Leslie Huffman, 64, a stage manager who was helping to set up the night’s music offerings.
She hadn’t been thinking about her health, but she plopped down in a folding chair and cracked jokes with staff as they drew her blood for a series of tests.
“They’re here. I’m here. Easy,” she said.
No quick answers.
In his office on Mack Avenue, Levy flipped through color-coded maps and bar graphs of data that can help lead to a healthier city and individuals who will enjoy longer, more active lives.He’s sure of it.
It will take years to see if he’s right.
“It’ll be 40 years, but it’s a long game, right?” Levy said. “If I’m looking at the success as measured by ‘Did I get this one person’s blood pressure under control?’ That’s the wrong metric. The metric is ‘Did I get this community healthier, and do people live longer?’ That’s ultimately why it matters.”
Levy’s team now has more than 70 paid employees, including medical assistants, patient service representatives, community health workers, nurses and nurse practitioners. And his program receives funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and nonprofits such as o the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Ralph Wilson Foundation, the United Way for Southeastern Michigan (which also are funders of the Center for Michigan, Bridge Michigan’s parent company), the Community Organized Relief Effort, BCBS of MI Foundation and Bank of America.
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