GALVESTON, TEXAS — A free pop-up mobile health clinic on the docks in Galveston, Texas, is providing primary care and social services to a community of Vietnamese fishermen who work with limited access to health care. The clinic, called UTHealth Houston's Docside Clinics, offers monthly free checkups for conditions such as hypertension and diabetes to shrimpers along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Shannon Guillot-Wright, a professor of occupational health at UTHealth Houston, started the mobile clinics more than four years ago. The program initially focused on addressing slips, trips, and falls among fishermen. Guillot-Wright said listening to the fishermen helped the clinic earn their trust. "Many of them would talk about, 'Look, I haven't had access to a physician in 10 years,'" she said.

Commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows commercial fishing has a fatality rate over 40 times the national average. Many of the fishermen served by the clinic are Vietnamese immigrants who are uninsured and have limited English proficiency.

In addition to medical care, the clinic provides food, clothing, and social and legal services. An unidentified medical student provides translation in Vietnamese at the clinic. Cecile "CucHuyen" Roberts and Cuc Hoa Trieu, sisters who immigrated from Vietnam to the U.S. in the 1980s, work as community health workers and translators for the program.

A community health worker helped a shrimper identified only as H get medical care through the clinic. H is in the process of renewing his permanent residency and fears his immigration status could be jeopardized by revealing his full name. Before the clinic started, H broke his pinky finger on the job and initially sought emergency care. Without health coverage, he missed follow-up appointments, leaving his finger crooked at a 90-degree angle.

During a recent session, nurse Martha Diaz knelt on a wooden dock to examine an open sore on a shrimper's heel. "I'm going to clean your foot and clean your wound, OK? And then we're going to put a bandage back on it. And you'll need to change it every week," Diaz told the patient. At the end of the clinic session, a fisherman limped away with a newly bandaged foot.

Kait Guild, a public health researcher who works with Harvard Medical School's Mobile Health Map, said mobile clinics serve a role in reaching underserved populations. "It's providing care in accessible spaces, places where underserved and marginalized community members and patients of all backgrounds feel safe," Guild said.

Guillot-Wright said the work reflects a connection between public health and the food supply. "We don't always do the work thinking about where our food comes from," she said.