State health officials will investigate concerns of unusually high rates of multiple sclerosis in communities surrounding the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station, which has been included in three major health investigations in the past five years.

The latest inquiry is being driven by persistent concerns among residents that the prevalence of multiple sclerosis in their neighborhoods cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence.

They fear that years of contamination at the former air base, which contains several federally designated toxic waste sites, seeped into their communities and left many people facing a disease that has no known cure.

"I have my beliefs that there are a large number of cases around the air base, so I think this is something that should be done," said David Wilmot, an Abington resident who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998. "My suspicion is that there is an environmental trigger, but (researchers) have not put their finger on it yet." In recent years, health officials have also investigated cancer rates in communities surrounding the air base and have looked into whether contaminants on the 1,450-acre property could be linked to elevated arsenic levels in a small number of South Weymouth residents. Neither of those efforts produced a definitive link to toxic sites on the base.

Meanwhile, town officials in Weymouth have been conducting a health survey that was designed in part to investigate the frequency of multiple sclerosis, lupus and other illnesses in neighborhoods surrounding the air base. The four communities bordering the base are Weymouth, Hingham, Abington and Rockland.

The new investigation, which will be conducted by environmental health specialists from the state Department of Public Health, will be expanded to include more than 20 communities in Norfolk and Plymouth counties.

Health officials say the primary focus will remain on the towns surrounding the air base, but special attention also will be paid to Middleboro, where residents have expressed concerns about what they see as an unusually high rate of Lou Gehrig's disease, known medically as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

In conducting the inquiry, state officials say they want to find out whether the two diseases are more common in people who live near hazardous waste sites.

Researchers suspect a link between the diseases and heavy metals and solvents that are commonly found at toxic sites, although no definitive connection has been discovered.

The investigation, which could begin as early as next month, is scheduled to last for two years and will be paid for with annual $100,000 grants from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The state will also help fund the investigation by paying the salaries of the environmental health officials who will direct the work.

"There are a bunch of health concerns around the naval air station related to the occurrence of multiple sclerosis," said Bob Knorr, deputy director for epidemiology in the state's Bureau of Environmental Health Assessment. "And this grant is a perfect mechanism to look at those concerns."

Knorr, who will be heading up the investigation, said the health officials will spend the bulk of their time identifying cases of multiple sclerosis and Lou Gehrig's disease, and determining their proximity to toxic sites on the air base and at a string of industrial properties in Middleboro.

Because multiple sclerosis and Lou Gehrig's disease are not infectious and do not require notification to public health officials, investigators will have to approach hospitals, doctor and patient advocacy groups to learn the names and addresses of people diagnosed with the diseases.

Once they identify the cases, health officials will use a computer mapping program to determine whether there are clusters of cases near hazardous waste sites. Knorr said people diagnosed with the diseases will not be contacted by investigators and their identities will not be revealed.

"There are state and federal laws that prevent us from sharing the data with anyone outside the department," he said. "Even if it is subpoenaed, the data remains protected."

However, state officials will have to reach agreements with hospitals and doctors to secure access to patients' records.

Dr. Brian Battista, whose office is in the Harbor Medical Associates building on Main Street in South Weymouth, said he would have concerns about the privacy of his patients but would help with the investigation as long as health officials offered complete confidentiality.

Battista, who is the personal physician of Wilmot, the Abington resident with multiple sclerosis, said about 12 of his office's 3,000 patients have been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in recent years. Nationally, about 1 in 1,000 people have been diagnosed with the disease, although many cases go unreported, patient advocates say.

"I'm concerned that there is something about the proximity to the air base that has resulted in an increased incidence of multiple sclerosis," Battista said.

He also said two of his patients have also been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease in the past six months.

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