Fully half of the U.S. renal transplant waiting list is composed of minority patients. Yet, due in part to blood group and HLA frequencies, African-Americans must wait l year, and Asians 6 months longer than Caucasians for a donated kidney. One solution is to increase organ donation and living-related transplantation among minority groups. This grant utilizes a unique community-based outreach network to deliver information on organ donation and transplantation to the African-American and Asian communities in Seattle and Tacoma. The grant funds the production of an educational video suitable for community and classroom featuring local minority transplant recipients. Also, public service announcements targeting minorities, produced by local minority students, will be shown at the Department of Motor Vehicles offices. A program of instruction will be instituted in local schools. Educational materials will be distributed in local neighborhoods and churches by VISTA volunteers, local residents recruited from the targeted African-American and Asian communities. Neighborhood VISTA volunteers will gain job experience and receive credits toward higher education. A computerized database of community residents will be created to record donation preferences, educational level attained, and medicai histories, data that could be used in future epidemiologic studies on these communities. The efficacy of this educational program will be measured by surveys on attitudes toward donation, by a Washington state organ donor card registry, and by actual donation and transplantation rates by race. This program is a model for community leadership in the development and delivery of health care information which could be applied to other health care issues.
