Pop-up Health Clinics in Laundromats: Program Lands $1.1 Million Grant
A new program that brings pop-up health clinics into local laundromats is set to expand across Bexar County, Texas, after landing a $1.1 million grant.
After running a small pilot program for the past two years providing health care in laundromats, Jack Tsai, PhD, professor and regional dean of UTHealth School of Public Health in San Antonio, secured the new $1.1 million grant to continue and expand the program for the next three years.
The Baptist Health Foundation of San Antonio awarded the grant to UTHealth School of Public Health during what UTHealth described as a highly competitive year for health care funding, with Tsai’s proposal beating out multiple applications from other Tier One institutions.
The program, named SPIN (Supporting Prevention In Neighborhoods), has been led by Tsai with the assistance of graduate students who set up pop-up clinics at different laundromats throughout San Antonio.
The clinics offer blood pressure screening, A1C hemoglobin testing for diabetes, and mental health screening. Results are returned to participants within minutes so they can know right away if they are at risk.
Those who tested positive for high blood pressure, high blood sugar or potential mental health disorders were referred to local low-cost or free health care resources available in San Antonio.
The new iteration of the project will operate much the same way, but the grant will allow the program to expand education, referrals, and connections to support continuation of care.
Clients will now get a warm handoff to services at University Health, the largest safety-net health care provider in San Antonio and a key partner on the project.
In coordination with the School of Public Health team, University Health providers will follow up on clients’ test results and connect them to health care services and health insurance for the uninsured.
“So far we’ve mostly just been doing the screening of health conditions,” Tsai said. “This expansion will really help us develop health education for participants and implement proper referral processes for folks to receive care.”
Last year, Tsai and co-investigators Vanessa Schick, PhD, and Nick McCann, MPH, published a study based on data from the pilot project that found participants from the laundromat clinics had rates of hypertension roughly twice as high as the population of Bexar County.
The participants also had slightly higher rates of diabetes than the rest of the population, data that Tsai said showed laundromats can be an effective place for reaching groups in need of health care access.
“And I think, importantly, we included in the survey the question ‘Are people comfortable being approached in laundromats?’” Tsai said. “And we found that many people were open to receiving interventions and health screenings at laundromats. That really gave us further motivation to continue the project.”
The project is also expanding its footprint from a few laundromats in the city to 16 laundromats across Bexar County, offering health screenings several times a week.
Tsai said the laundromat clinic model grew out of brainstorming with Schick about how to reach people who most need health care at critical times and in key places, along with his own experience working with vulnerable populations.
“I’ve been a clinician for homeless veterans for many years, and in homeless outreach what often really works is serving people where they are in order to engage people in health care,” Tsai said. “We go to where the homeless folks are, whether it’s shelters or soup kitchens or sometimes on the streets.”
A preliminary study by Tsai and Schick published in 2022 on the demographics of laundromat users found many users are lower income and face significant barriers to accessing traditional health care. The early data collection showed more than half of laundromat users surveyed were living at poverty level and did not have health insurance coverage.
According to that study, laundromat users were also significantly more likely to report poor health and physical impairment compared to county and state population estimates. They were less likely to have a primary care provider, to have received a routine medical checkup in the past year, and to have been tested for HIV.
In that sample, 78% of respondents expressed interest in receiving health care services on-site at laundromats. This is a great example of community support for all laundromats to consider.