Organ donation

Abstract

Welcome to Public Health Moment from the University of Minnesota. The African American men who frequent Brian D's Old School Barbers in North Minneapolis usually talk about sports. But lately, they've been talking a lot about men's health. It’s all a part of "Barbershop Conversations," a University of Minnesota study that encourages African American men to talk about their health and hopes to get more of them to become organ donors. David Radosevich, an adjunct health policy professor at the University of Minnesota, led the study. <Radosevich: “It’s been a three, three-and-a-half-year project where we’re actually trying to increase organ donation designation among African American men. On average African American men only designate, [provide] donor-designation on their driver’s license at a rate of about 35 percent. And this compares actually against men, white men, which is right around 45 to 50 percent here in Minnesota.” Radosevich views the recently completed project as a success, even though it's too early to tell if more African American men have or will become organ donors, he said. <Radosevich: “This has at least become a topic of conversation. And I think before people can actually change, or make changes in health behaviors, it has to be a salient issue to them. In other words, it has to be something that they think about, they talk about with their friends, talk about with their family members and things of this sort, so that hopefully the next time that they actually renew their driver’s license, they’ll actually check off organ donation on their driver’s license application.” For Public Health Moment, I’m Mark Engebretson