Extend the Process of Saving Lives

In spite of increasing interest in the area of African Americans' willingness to donate organs, little empirical knowledge exists that can be used to create more effective public communication campaigns. The biggest issue with transplantation is a lack of donors. Minorities made up 15% of donors but more over 50% of the country's waiting list in 1982. Black people were regarded as non-donors while making up only 3% of donors.The dearth of transplant awareness among Black volunteers made them hesitant to donate their organs. From 1982 to 1988, we used grassroots community face-to-face encounters to increase African-American donation rates as the basis for our approaches for overcoming the resistance. In the Washington, D.C., region, African American donations quadrupled between 1982 and 1988, and the number of African Americans signing donor cards rose from 20 per month to 750 per month. After a nationwide Black- focused media campaign, Gallup Polls (1985 vs. 1990) indicated a tripling of transplant awareness and signed donor cards among Black participants. Based upon the above methods, the National Minority Organ Tissues Transplant Education Program was established in 1991 targeting ethnic minority groups, thus expanding the journey of saving lives through organ donation to include all minority populations. Data from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) database from 1990 to 2017 were analyzed to determine if there was an increase in minority donors.

Organ donors per million (ODM) among Latino/Hispanics and African Americans grew nationwide, rising from 8 to 10 ODM in 1982 to 30 ODM in 2002. Minorities made about 25% of the USA's population in 2000; national minority donor rates rose from 15% to 28.5% in 2002.

According to the 2010 UNOS data, Black participation in ODM in the US scored best, showing that donation rates may be raised and maintained when using in-person presentations and interactions together with multimedia. As a result, these strategies can increase contribution rates across all communities. The rise in 2010 (32 years and 4 decades later) is notable since Black people in the USA became the ethnic group with the highest ODM rate, with a rate of 35 ODM in 2010 and a rate of 38 ODM in 2017. As a result, bringing the MOTTEP concept to all racial and cultural groups is a crucial next step in raising donations.