by Raina Jain

Posted on May 6, 2013

A national campaign is encouraging the senior population to donate their organs.

The campaign is being led by the Health Resources and Services Administration, which has teamed up with the Administration for Community Living’s Administration on Aging and the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging.

Although 60 percent of transplants were for patients 50 and older, only 32 percent of donors were from the same population in 2011. The same trend followed in 2012.

Linda Jones, former executive director of the Lifeline of Ohio Organ Procurement Agency, has spent years studying the wide gap in the age of organ donors. Often, the elder population refrains from donation due to fears that health conditions (like diabetes and heart disease) exclude them from being eligible donors.

Jones commented, “They’re ruling themselves out…Our job is to help them understand that they shouldn’t rule themselves out.”

The campaign aims to achieve its goal by saturating media outlets, and has thus far used public service announcements on 221 radio stations, national magazines, and interviews by Dr. Howard Koh, assistant secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The effects of the campaign have been difficult to quantitatively measure, but regardless, Jones says, “We’re hoping that we can make an impact.”

Read more: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/national_campaign_to_encourage.html