Vaccines, health screenings, and more available Saturday at North Texas Wellness Fair
The annual North Texas Wellness Fair will return Saturday after a COVID-19 hiatus, coming at a time when thousands of Tarrant County residents desperately need the vaccines and other preventative services the fair will offer for free.
The event regularly attracts hundreds if not thousands of people from the greater Fort Worth community who can receive dozens of different health services for free. The fair will be at the Forest Hill Civic and Convention Center from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. Saturday. Anyone can get medical care at the fair, without an appointment and with no health insurance or payment necessary.
This year, some of the services are even more desperately needed, as millions of Americans have delayed essential preventative medical care during the pandemic.
For example, the fair will provide free mammograms to screen for breast cancer. A study published in the journal Preventive Medicine in June shows a dramatic decline in preventative screenings for breast and cervical cancers among low-income women in April 2020, immediately after many Americans began sheltering-in-place. The study found that screenings for breast cancer dropped 87%, and screenings for cervical cancer dropped 84% in April 2020 compared with the previous 5-year averages for the same month. The trend was even worse among Black, American Indian, and Hispanic women, who are already disproportionately affected by cervical and breast cancer.
“It’s scary,” said Anelia Banda, the executive director of the Hispanic Wellness Coalition, which hosts Saturday’s wellness fair. “We’ve been shut down for a year because of COVID, and not a lot of people pay attention to their health.”
Even just one month of delayed diagnoses for diseases like breast and cervical cancer could have dramatic impacts.
“The declines in breast cancer screening test volume due to COVID-19 identified in this study may lead to later stage breast cancer diagnosis and mortality while declines in cervical cancer screening may result in increased cervical cancer incidence, later stage diagnoses, and mortality, furthering cancer disparities among this population,” according to the Preventive Medicine study.
At Saturday’s event, services available will include a mental health counselor for short, life-coaching sessions, legal aid support, an immigration attorney, COVID-19 shots and COVID-19 education, rapid HIV testing, vision and hearing tests, and more.
Originally titled the Hispanic Wellness Fair, organizers changed the event’s name to make it clear that the event was open to anyone in the greater Fort Worth community.
“Just because the name of the organization is Hispanic Wellness Coalition doesn’t mean that we limited our event to just the Hispanic population,” Banda said. The coalition has particularly increased its outreach to local Vietnamese and Islamic communities in recent years, she said.
Here’s what you need to know:
- WHAT: The North Texas Wellness Fair offers dozens of different health services for free, including COVID-19 vaccines, back-to-school vaccines for kids, vision checks, sexually transmitted infection testing, mammograms, immigration attorneys, legal aid and much more.
- WHEN: 8 a.m.- 1 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 7.
- WHERE: Forest Hill Civic and Convention Center, 6901 Wichita St., Forest Hill, TX 76140.
