A dream of several Ohio University faculty members became reality last Friday when the OU Board of Trustees approved a plan to create the Center for Appalachian and Rural Health Research.

Faculty members at the center will research rural health in America, especially in Appalachia, and make recommendations for health care providers, said Al Pheley, the center's director.

"The center is going to help rural health, it's not to decide what is going to be done," he said.

Although the center has been a long-term idea for many faculty members, the first steps toward its creation took shape when the College of Osteopathic Medicine's Office of Research, OU faculty, students and local high school students studied Appalachian Ohio's demographics and surveyed 1,000 southeast Ohio residents.

Participants were asked questions about personal health characteristics, access to and use of health care services, personal health problems and food security and hunger. OU-COM found that 30 percent of those surveyed had high cholesterol and 35 percent suffer from high blood pressure.

Last January, OU-COM surveyed OU faculty members to measure interest in the project. OU-COM received almost 150 responses from many different colleges , Pheley said.

Now, OU-COM will conduct focus groups with 5,000 local residents, businessmen and health care providers about health risks and health care problems.

"The more we learn about them, the better we will be able to help them, the better we will be able to train our physicians," Pheley said.

In July, interdisciplinary faculty will apply for grants from the National Institutes of Health and other organizations.

While Pheley said he hopes the center will be funded by grants and foundations, OU-COM is paying the director and student workers' salaries and for basic office equipment.

He also said he hopes the center will have a building, maybe five years down the road. Currently, the center is a network of people, and any needed offices will be set up in Grosvenor Hall.

Carol Blum, interim vice president for research and graduate studies, told the trustees she thought the center could really help improve health care in Appalachia.

"I think that we're really positioning the university to take off," she said.