Get Your Health Checked – For Free

Buses to deliver 2.6 million health screenings nationwide

Source: AARP.org

As of April 14, buses are traveling across the United States and Puerto Rico, stopping in 300 cities in a two-year campaign to provide free health screenings, health-education information, and AARP memberships.

The AARP/Walgreens Wellness Tour, made up of eight specially equipped buses in the United States and one in Puerto Rico, will serve residents in more than 3,000 communities between now and the spring of 2011, with screenings aimed at early detection and disease prevention, and with a special emphasis on underserved communities. Each bus has at least one bilingual (Spanish-English) certified medical technician on staff.

No appointment is necessary for the health screenings, which are open to anyone 18 or older; visitors are not required to have either an AARP membership or health insurance. (The bus crew will hand out free, one-year AARP memberships to everyone undergoing screenings. Those who are already members will receive one-year extensions, and those who aren’t yet 50 years old may give their one-year memberships to older friends or relatives.) Certified medical technicians will conduct the screenings on a first-come, first-served basis. The screenings, valued at more than $140, include:

• Total Cholesterol Levels – Screenings raise awareness of high blood cholesterol as a risk factor for coronary heart disease. Awareness is the first step toward modifying lifestyle to reduce risk.
• Blood Pressure – High blood pressure is one of the most common chronic conditions in adults. However, people with high blood pressure usually don't have symptoms, so they often don't know that they have it until it is measured.
• Bone Density – Bone-density testing is a valuable tool in the diagnosis of osteoporosis and is a fairly accurate predictor of an individual’s risk of fractures.
• Glucose Levels – Blood-glucose testing is used to screen healthy individuals for diabetes and pre-diabetes, because diabetes is a common disease that begins with few symptoms.
• Waist Circumference, Body Composition, and Body Mass Index – The nation's scales are going up, so raising public awareness about the problem of obesity and the risks of excess weight is critical.

To learn when the tour is scheduled to serve your community, call, toll-free, 866-484-TOUR or visit www.aarpwalgreens.com/tour.

The AARP/Walgreens Wellness Tour, which addresses the stated goal of both organizations to improve the health and quality-of-life of people across the nation, aims to deliver 2.5 million health screenings over the next two years—an important step, given that screenings can help detect many diseases long before symptoms are apparent. By combining their resources—AARP has more than 40 million members, and Walgreens operates more than 6,700 drugstores in 49 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico—the two organizations are promoting the Wellness Tour to provide free health screenings to people in need of affordable health care.