Current Projects
I currently have grant funding for several projects that center on creating and evaluating organ donation campaigns. These campaigns vary in terms of target audience (African Americans, general population, worksite employees) and type of channel or setting (mass media, grassroots outreach, worksite, DMV/BMV).
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Communication and Cancer Clinical Trials
There are many interrelated issues involved with the promotion of clinical trials to test the efficacy of new cancer treatment protocols, including the way in which the media present information about what clinical trials are, mistrust of the medical system, health literacy of target populations, communication about cancer clinical trials through informed consent documents, and medical adherence to treatment regimens. We are currently collecting data on media depictions of clinical trials as well as pilot studies of physicians' attitudes toward clinical trials. We are also in the process of working toward identifying the types of communication strategies used by physicians that predict higher patient enrollment in clinical trials. We are partnering with the Hoosier Oncology Group and IU Medical Center on these pilot studies.
Show Us Your Heart Campaign (co-Principal Investigator)
This is an $826,000 outreach campaign to promote Michigan’s organ donor registry. Michigan has a very low rate of enrollment relative to other states and we hope to help change that in order to increase the number of people who receive transplants in Michigan, particularly African Americans who represent a high percentage of people who are on the transplant waiting list. Preliminary results have demonstrated a dramatic impact of various campaign elements on the number of people registering to be potential donors. Numbers of registrants have actually declined in control counties.
Media depictions of organ donation II
In an effort to finally nail down exactly what happens when viewers watch entertainment television episodes that present inaccurate information about organ donation, we have conducted a lab study where beliefs and behavioral intent of people who watch “bad” episodes (of Grey’s Anatomy, for example) are contrasted with those of people who watch episodes without organ donation-related content. Results (forthcoming publication, Journal of Communication) indicate that respondents' beliefs reflect what they have seen on TV.
The Drive for Life Campaign (Principal Investigator)
Our team is implementing a $1M Drive for Life Campaign in Kentucky, which will contrast two groups of four counties against a third group of counties that will serve as controls. An alternating time-series design will test which types of campaigns are the most effective in persuading Kentuckians to register as organ donors at the DMV. We will be testing the effect of DMV clerk training, mass media campaigns, grassroots campaigns, and point-of-decision campaigns (within DMV offices) in succession, building and then subtracting interventions while tracking the number of registrations monthly in 6-month waves. Our community partner organizations are the Trust for Life and Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates.
Recently Completed Projects
Donate Life Hollywood (Board of Directors)
Based on the data I collected from recent media studies, a coalition of transplant-related organizations as well as concerned individuals has created an initiative called Donate Life Hollywood. This is a proactive advocacy group that builds relationships with television writers and producers in order to improve depictions of organ donation in entertainment media. In addition to putting writers and producers in touch with important informational resources and advocating for the use of accurate information (and the discontinuation of plotlines based on myths about donation), Donate Life Hollywood also reacts to negative depictions of organ donation. Through a media monitoring service, streaming video clips and transcripts of organ donation-related episodes are downloaded, and when necessary, media alerts are issued to stakeholder groups and members are encouraged to write letters of protest. DHL also sends letters directly to writers, producers, and studio heads to describe problematic content and to offer correct information.
The University Worksite Organ Donation Project (Principal Investigator)
This was a 6-state project (NJ, TX, AZ, AL, NC, PA) with two community partners: The New Jersey Sharing Network and the Southwest Transplant Alliance. Two types of campaigns were contrasted against a control group. In addition, we ran sidebar studies of how families (both African American and non-African American) communicate about organ donation. Our project-related studies started being published in 2005 and we have quite a few in press in medical and social science journals.
Media depictions of organ donation and effects on the public
This project came about almost accidentally. I received supplemental grant funding to monitor national and regional media for potential confounds to the findings of our University Worksite project. When we became inundated with shows that featured organ donation, we started looking more closely at the content of these programs. When we saw how negative depictions of organ donation were and how they played on common myths about donation, we did systematic content analyses to document what was happening. Coincidently, our family communication studies were demonstrating that media content was showing up in conversations about donation, which indicated that it was having some sort of effect on the public. A more recent study with collaborators at USC added further evidence that specific false content on television shows was having a direct effect on viewers’ beliefs about donation as well as their willingness to donate.
The LifeShare Project (co-Principal Investigator)
This was a $600K grant funded project in Charlotte, North Carolina to promote organ donation within the African American community. Partnerships between the Black Medical Association, LifeShare of the Carolinas, prominent African American pastors of Black churches, and media outlets that primarily serve the African American community helped to create a grassroots and media campaign. DMV organ donor registrations were tracked every month of the project and increases between African Americans and non-African Americans were contrasted. Pre- and posttest telephone survey data is currently being analyzed. My community partner on this project was LifeShare of the Carolinas.
The New Jersey Workplace Partnership for Life (WPFL) (Principal Investigator)
WPFL is a $1.7M funded project that tests the effectiveness of different types of worksite campaigns and the impact of organizational features on campaign success. A total of 45 organizations participated in the project. Worksites were quite diverse and included manufacturing, finance, R and D, pharmaceutical, law, medical, educational, and service organizations. We are in the final year of this project and are currently conducting data analysis. Our community partner was the New Jersey Sharing Network.
