Increasing Minority Bone Marrow Donors
Rachel Edwards
This creative project aims to address the fact that many people, especially African-Americans, don’t want to donate bone marrow. The reasons for why this is the case differ among individuals, but research suggests that there are distinctive themes that correlate with willingness to donate or not to donate. These themes include lack of awareness about donation, religious myths and misperceptions, distrust of the medical community, fear of premature death, and only willing to donate for another African-American. These themes can also be grouped into three categories: cultural factors, donor related concerns, and psychosocial influences. Cultural factors include religious beliefs, potential religious religious objections, family cohesion, and mistrust of either the medical system at large or with the donation itself. Donor related concerns include others’ reactions to potential donation (encouragement to donate or not to donate), how individuals believe others view them as a donor, ambivalence about donation, and satisfaction with the decision to continue towards donation. Psychosocial factors include psychological distress, self-esteem, and health-related quality of life. (Switzer)
"This creative project aims to change people’s perceptions about bone marrow donation."
The objective of this creative project is to build a transmedia storytelling campaign that directly addresses the reasons people are unwilling to donate. It seeks to provide educational and innovative storytelling techniques about the process and importance of bone marrow donation.
With a stem cell transplant from a living donor, patients with leukemia and other blood diseases stand a better chance of recovery and returning to a normal life. Without a stem cell transplant, their prospects of survival are slim-to-none. In order for a transplant to be successful, the immunity responses of the donor and the recipient must have a matching leukocyte antigen, or HLA system. “Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing is used to match patients and donors for bone marrow or cord blood transplants. HLA are proteins — or markers — found on most cells in your body. Your immune system uses these markers to recognize which cells belong in your body and which do not”(Be the Match). People have several of these HLA markers. You inherit half of your HLA markers from each parent; so each sibling you have with the same parents stand a 25% chance of having a close HLA match. For a donor to match, however, you must match at least six HLA markers. Often, a closer match is required and can be found through detailed testing. Matching HLA markers is essential for a successful outcome because HLA “promotes the growth and development of new healthy blood cells and reduces the risk of a post-transplant complication called graft-versus-host disease” (Be the Match).