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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Kristine Wong, MPH, Independent Submission, PO Box 80082, Seattle, WA 98108, 206.351.5505, kristinewong@yahoo.com and Sandy Shih Andrada, Community Affairs, California Transplant Donor Network, 1611 Telegraph Avenue Ste. 600, Oakland, CA 94612.

The lack of donated organs in the United States is a rapidly increasing health disparity and a life-or-death issue that disproportionately affects Asian Pacific Americans (APAs). Of the over 90,000 patients currently on the national waiting list for a life-saving transplant, over 50% are people of color. APAs are overrepresented on the U.S. waiting list (6.1%), and are the least likely to donate (<2%). Due to a lack of donors, 1 patient dies every 85 minutes, while 13 are added to the list daily. It is incumbent upon us to raise donation rates among APAs, in order to decrease the number of unnecessary deaths of other APAs waiting for transplants. Our call is to raise APA donation rates through a national, culturally competent public education campaign targeting APAs that addresses: (1) basic knowledge of organ donation, including the fairness of the allocation system; (2) awareness of the success of transplantation as a treatment for end-stage organ failure; (3) a belief in the humanitarian virtue of organ donation and pride in being a donor. Our call is to address this void through a national campaign with the following components: (1) targeting younger generation APAs with a message that becoming donors will help other APAs; (2) disseminating the message through national APA organizations, the workplace, and those on the bone marrow registry; (3) working with a national cadre of community health workers in APA communities and social service centers; (4) utilization of the ethnic media to target limited and non-English speaking APAs.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the critical need for organ donation nationwide
• Understand that organ donation is a racial and ethnic health disparity among Asian Pacific Americans and other people of color
• Be able to articulate the factors that lead to an increased willingness to donate
• Critically analyze why the current APA community education campaigns on organ donation are not meeting the addressing the overall need for donation that a national APA campaign on organ donation would address

Keywords: Asian and Pacific Islander, Community Education

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered