Grant to help raise organ-donor awareness among Hispanics

David Kihara

Friday, Nov. 19, 2004 | 4:30 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

November 20 - 21, 2004

For more information about the Nevada Donor Network, go to www.nvdonor.org

Donating organs is against your religion. Hospitals won't give you adequate medical attention if you carry a donor card. Hispanics do not receive organ transplants at the same rate and pace as their white counterparts.

These are a few of the misconceptions in the Hispanic community that an organ donor organization, using a money from a federal grant, will attempt to address.

Beginning in December, Nevada Donor Network will beginning running short 30- to 60-second public service messages on Spanish-speaking television and radio stations in Clark County aimed at increasing awareness about organ donations.

Hispanics represent approximately 20 percent of Nevada's kidney donor waiting list but account for only 11 percent of the donors, according to Nevada Donor Network.

Currently, 169 people are on the waiting list to receive a kidney or pancreas in Nevada, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation network, a national nonprofit established in 1984 by the Congress and contracted by the Federal government.

All of Nevada's transplants take place in Clark County because the only two hospitals in the state where transplant surgery is done are University Medical Center and Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center.

Whites are the ethnic group with the most individuals on the Nevada list with 59, followed closely by blacks, who make 53. Hispanics are third, with 31 individuals in need of organ transplants in Nevada.

From January 1 to present, 54 individuals have donated kidneys or pancreases in Nevada, according to Nevada Donor Network.

There were 491,376 Hispanics living in Nevada, according to July 2003 numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. There were 2.2 million people residing in Nevada as of July 2003. A total of 382,607 Hispanics out of 1.5 million total population live in Clark County, according to 2003 U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

The Health Resource and Service Administration, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, last month awarded the Nevada Donor Network a $250,000 grant to air the commercials from December to August 2005, said Ann Sagel, director of the Nevada Donor Network.

The aim of the radio and television ads is two-fold. First, the short public service messages will try to demystify some of the falsehoods surrounding organ donation among Hispanics and to show the need and results of donating a kidney or pancreas, Sagel said.

Second, the Nevada Donor Network will study whether the ad spots have effectively informed Hispanics in Las Vegas about organ donations.

The studies will examine attitudes toward organ donations in Hispanic communities before the advertisements are broadcast and after the commercials finish in August. The data will be compared to see if a change in attitudes has taken place.

The study will also look to see if the rate of organ donation consent has increased.

"We are still waiting to see if these commercials are effective in raising awareness," Sagel said.

According to the Donor Network's grant proposal, one of the proposed commercials features a character named "Miguel," and is considered an "emotional appeal." "Miguel," the 10-year-old boy featured in the ads, is sitting at a computer and is engaged in a online chat room. From what Miguel is typing, the audience is made aware that the youth is suffering from a life-threatening heart defect and he needs a heart donation. Near the end of the ad, a voiceover states that many Hispanics nationwide need organ transplants.

One proposed radio spot also features a young child suffering from a heart condition who is in need of a transplant, according to the grant proposal.

The Nevada Donor Network is working with the Donor Network of Arizona to both study and produce the ad sports. According to Stacy Underwood, spokesperson for the Donor Network of Arizona, the Arizona group is producing the advertisements and will help conduct surveys to gauge awareness of organ donations in Las Vegas and Phoenix.

The Health Resource and Service Administration gave the Donor Network of Arizona $285,000, according to Underwood. The organization will use that money to produce the advertisements and to conduct the studies, which will also employ researchers from the University of Arizona.

The Nevada Donor Network will use $225,000 of the grant to purchase air time on the local Spanish-language radio and television stations, said Lori Crews, spokeswoman for the local donor organization.

The remaining $25,000 will be used for administrative purposes, such as hiring a Spanish speaker to answer a donor hotline, Crews said.

Crews said the group's mission includes overcoming many myths.

One is "a lot of people think organ donation is against their religion, but it's not true -- almost all religions approve of organ donation," Crews said.

According to the Nevada Donor Network, almost all major religions in the United States consider organ donation acceptable. The only two that explicitly prohibit the practice of organ donations are Shinto and gypsies, according to the organization.

An estimated 90,000 people nationwide are currently waiting for an organ donation, according to Crews, who added that 111 people each day are added to the list.