Hello Jessie,
You might want to put an article in The
SAMEC Trust’s newsletter; they are an organisation aiming to raise
awareness of health issues and conditions that affect minority ethnic
communities in the UK, and their newsletter goes out to a large database of BME
organisations nationwide.
Also, you might want to consider adding
photographs to your leaflet, especially if you are leaving them at local
centres etc to be picked up. I did some focus groups with the AC
community and found that images were the first thing to draw peoples attention to
what was relevant to them.
Good luck!
Sarah
From:
Health of minority ethnic communities in the UK
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cooper, Jessie
Sent: 05 October 2009 17:34
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: organ donation and
ethnicity study
Dear
Colleagues,
I
am writing to publicise my research study and also to ask advice about
publicising my study to the South Asian and Afro-Caribbean Communities in the
North-West of England.
I’m
a PhD research student in the division of Public Health at Liverpool University
doing a qualitative ethnographic study (in-depth interviews and observation)
into deceased organ donation amongst Minority Ethnic communities
(specifically South Asian/Asian British and Afro-Caribbean/Black British) in
the North-West (possibly also spreading into Yorkshire) of England.
The
study has been set up because there has been much written in policy and
research about the ‘problem’ of the high need for organs for
transplant from South Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities in the UK, and the
corresponding low donation levels from these communities. However, the issue
has been conceptualised in a really narrow way, often by just assessing
community attitudes towards organ donation; the implication being that people
don’t donate simply because of their ‘culture’. In this way,
culture is misunderstood as a rigid set or rules which people follow, and
ethnicity is placed as an inherent barrier to organ donation and healthcare
participation. In other words, the process of decision-making in organ donation
situations is de-contextualised and the communities are essentially being
blamed for the organ shortage.
What
my study will do is take a more contextual approach and look at the
experiences of South Asian and Afro-Caribbean families who have been asked to
donate their relative’s organs after their death, as well as the
health professionals who were involved in these cases. This will be done
through retrospective interviewing and observation, in order to understand what
goes on between families and health professionals when the request for an organ
is made, and how the decision to donate or not is made.
The
plan is to recruit donor and non-donor families (those who did not consent to
donation) from the South Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities, and from these,
also recruit the health professionals who were involved with each family. I
will be recruiting donor families with the help of transplant coordinators and
non-donor families (and additional donor families) by going into the
community , e.g. promoting the research in community centres, local newsletters
etc. It is the latter which I would like some advice on, and any suggestions as
to what organisations might be useful to promote the research through would be
gratefully received. So far I have been contacting community centres to post
adverts about the research, as well as set up to talk about the study at a few
meetings, I’ve also got a small article which has gone in/will be going
in some BME development organisations newsletters. I’m also visiting
temples and plan to try and get on some local radio shows as well. As the study
is so specific and the numbers of families who have had this experience so
small, it is going to be very difficult to recruit participants. Any advice on alternative ways of promoting the
study/reaching the communities/names of organisations which might be useful to
contact would be greatly received! I have attached a flyer which
advertises the study and calls for volunteers to participate (I also have this
in other languages).
I
look forward to hearing from you,
Many
thanks
Jessie
Cooper
______________________________________________
Jessie Cooper
PhD Student - The
Room 1.07, The
Division of Public Health,
Brownlow Hill,
Tel: 0151 794 5272