Blood Donor Drives & High School Students to Educate People About Organ Donation

描述（申请人提供）：器官移植的主要限制因素是可用器官的缺乏。可获得器官的短缺对非洲裔美国人来说尤其严重，西班牙裔美国人的短缺程度较轻。献血者是一个天生的利他群体，但没有研究表明献血者是否比非献血者更愿意签约成为器官捐献者。现在几乎所有的血库都在高中开展献血活动，在圣地亚哥，向圣地亚哥血库捐赠的血液中有21%来自高中的献血活动。这些活动是由高中学生在血库工作人员的协助和监督下组织和进行的。我们建议高中生要求献血者和非献血者签署加州机动车辆部器官捐献计划，这可以在网上快速方便地完成。我们将在非裔美国人和西班牙裔美国人比例较高的高中和社区开展这项研究。我们的主要假设是，献血者比非献血者更愿意签约成为献血者。在被要求成为器官捐献者后，参与者将参加由一名高中生主持的10分钟关于器官捐赠的简短教育会议。然后，受试者将再次被要求作为器官捐赠者签名。我们的第二个假设是，教育课程将增加签约成为器官捐献者的受试者数量，并且献血的效果将比不献血的效果更大。这些教育材料将具有文化敏感性，因为它们将由三到五名学生组成的团队开发，其中至少包括一名非裔美国人和一名西班牙裔学生。如果这个项目成功，它可以很容易地在美国广泛传播，我们证明它可以显著增加非裔美国人和西班牙裔美国人捐献器官的数量。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The main limiting factor for organ transplantation is a deficiency of available organs. The shortage of available organs is especially severe for African-Americans, and to a lesser extent Hispanics. Blood donors are an inherently altruistic group, but no studies have addressed whether blood donors would be more willing to sign on as organ donors than non- blood donors. Almost all blood banks now conduct blood drives in high schools, and, in San Diego, 21% of blood donated to the San Diego Blood Bank comes from high school blood drives. These drives are organized and conducted by high school students, with assistance and supervision by blood bank officials. We propose to have high school students ask blood donors and non-blood donors to sign on to the California Department of Motor Vehicles organ donor program, which can be done quickly and easily on-line. We will conduct the study in high schools and communities that have a high percentage of African-Americans and Hispanics. Our primary hypothesis is that blood donors will be more willing to sign on as blood donors than non-blood donors. After being asked to sign on as an organ donor, participating subjects will partake in a short 10 minute educational session about organ donation led by a high school student. The subjects will then again be asked to sign on as an organ donor. Our secondary hypotheses are that the educational session will increase the number of subjects who will sign on as an organ donor, and that the effect will be greater in blood donors than non-blood donors. The educational materials will be culturally sensitive, as they will be developed by a team of three to five students that will include at least one African-American and one Hispanic student. If this program is successful, it could easily be disseminated widely throughout the United States, and we demonstrate that it could increase markedly the number of organs donated by African-Americans and Hispanics. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The number of people who are candidates for organ transplantation far exceeds the number of organ donors; this imbalance is particularly critical for minority groups such as African-Americans. We propose to determine if high school students can increase the interest of blood donors in their communities in becoming organ donors. If successful, this study could point to a method to markedly reduce the disparity between the number of organ donors and organ recipients.