Att D - Intro Letter

Appendix D

[FILL DATE]

[FIRSTNAME] [LASTNAME]

[ADDRESS 1] [ADDRESS 2]

[CITY], [STATE] [ZIPCODE]

Dear [FIRSTNAME] [LASTNAME]:

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a federal health agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, is asking for your help with the Katrina and Rita Exposures (KARE) Registry. This registry is a listing of people who left their homes during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and stayed in a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) supplied home.

KARE will help us gather information about possible effects related to living in FEMA supplied homes. It will also help determine if enough eligible people can be found and if they are willing to be part of the Registry. If the first part of this registry is successful, a full-study can then be conducted for which many more people will be enrolled.

KARE will enroll up to 3,000 individuals who left their homes in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. You have been contacted because FEMA indicated you stayed in one of their supplied homes after the hurricane(s).

In the next few weeks, an interviewer from RTI International, a non-profit research firm that is helping ATSDR set up KARE, will call you to explain the Registry and answer any questions you may have. If you are eligible to join the Registry, the interviewer will ask you a set of questions as part of a 20 minute interview over the telephone.

Included with this letter is a brochure that describes the Registry. There is also a calendar of key dates during the time of the hurricanes. There is space on the calendar for you to note where you were living during these key times. This might help you recall events during the interview. Please keep this brochure available for when we call should you choose to join the Registry.

All information will be kept private and confidential. If you prefer, you can call our toll-free telephone number, 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx, to enroll. Whether or not you join the Registry is up to you.

For more information, please visit our website (www.xxxx.org) or call us at 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx. We hope that you choose to participate, and thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

Jay Sapp Paul Pulliam

Principal Investigator Project Director

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry RTI International