Heart disease is rampant in parts of the rural South. Researchers are hitting the road to learn why

Associated Press

Public health experts from some of the nation’s leading research universities have deployed a massive medical trailer to rural parts of the South as part of an ambitious and unusual new health study. The researchers aim to test the heart and lung function of roughly 4,600 residents of 10 counties and parishes in Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi. They want to know why heart and lung diseases are more prevalent in the rural South than in other parts of the country. But some rural southern counties do better than others. The researchers also want to know what makes those places more resilient.