Health of Texas Community provides opportunity to understand state of health in Texas 

Published: August 28, 2025

Health of Texas, led by team members from UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, contains three elements: Health of Texas Community, Health of Texas Data, and Health of Texas Horizon. 

The power of communities comes from many people coming together to pursue a common goal. As a Texas-sized total health program, Health of Texas Community is no different, and aims to offer insights on the health impacts affecting Texas families the most. 

“Health of Texas Community is going to expand beyond COVID and look at the entire spectrum of health and chronic disease,” said Eric Boerwinkle, PhD, dean of the school of public health. “We’re also expanding to biomarkers of chronic disease, including measures of inflammation, possibly cholesterol, and many other things.” 

As part of Health of Texas Community, participants will take at least one survey about their health. Based on that survey and other future opportunities, additional surveys may be available in the future. Participants should stay subscribed to Health of Texas text messages and emails to ensure they receive the latest updates. 

“Health of Texas will allow participants to better understand health, their unique needs as a household, as an individual, as well as provide information that they could then use or take back to their medical provider and make more informed decisions about their care,” said Melissa Valerio-Shewmaker, PhD, MPH, professor and associate dean of Faculty Affairs at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. 

The Health of Texas team will be sending invitations to join Health of Texas Community to participants who completed at least one survey during Texas CARES. If you do not receive an invitation and you completed at least one Texas CARES survey, email the team at [email protected]. Health of Texas is not enrolling new participants at this time. 

As the Health of Texas team learns more about Texans’ health needs, they hope to share findings, reports and more information with participants. 

“This is an exciting opportunity that the state of Texas will be able to use to inform practice, policy and changes across communities,” Valerio said. 

Watch a video about Health of Texas Community at https://go.uth.edu/AboutCommunity. Contact the Health of Texas team by leaving a message on a secure voicemail at 713-500-9441 or by emailing [email protected]. Follow Health of Texas on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.