Research Updates in Kidney and Urologic Health

NKDEP Launches Programs to Prevent Kidney Disease Among African Americans

Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Jackson, MS, Serve as Testing Grounds

June marked the launch of the first NIH pilot education program to increase awareness about kidney disease and promote early testing among African Americans, who are among those hardest hit by kidney disease. The National Kidney Disease Education Program (NKDEP) and its partners held the kick-off during the Steering Committee meeting on June 20, 2003, in Bethesda, Maryland.

You Have the Power to Prevent Kidney Disease is a year-long pilot program in four cities—Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Jackson, Mississippi—chosen for their relatively large African American communities and their existing resources. Local coalitions are working through the media, through dialysis patients and their families, and through other outlets to encourage people at high risk for kidney disease to be tested and to learn about treatments that can help them avoid end-stage renal disease.

"This education program has been built with members of the communities it aims to serve, so its messages—that kidney disease can be prevented and treated—are on target to reach the people who most need to know," says Griffin Rodgers, M.D., deputy director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which supports NKDEP.

Janice Lea, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at Emory University and co-chair of the NKDEP Atlanta Coalition said, "The number one goal of our coalition is to make African Americans, who are disproportionately represented among those with kidney disease, aware of the risks of kidney disease, to encourage them to talk to their physicians about kidney disease, and to get tested if they are at risk."

According to national statistics, African Americans make up 12 percent of the U.S. population, but account for about 30 percent of those with kidney failure. Approximately 20 million Americans have kidney disease, and some 400,000 have kidney failure requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant to stay alive. That figure is expected to double in the next 10 years.

The You Have the Power to Prevent Kidney Disease campaign stresses that

• Early detection is important. If you have diabetes, hypertension, or a family history of kidney failure, you are at risk. Talk to your doctor about having your kidneys checked.
  
  
• Effective treatment can prevent or slow kidney damage.
  
  
• Left undiagnosed and untreated, kidney disease can lead to kidney failure.

Diabetes and hypertension are directly linked to kidney disease. According to the U.S. Renal Data System, about 75 percent of the African Americans who have kidney failure also have diabetes or hypertension. People who have any risk factor at all should be tested for kidney disease.

"People just don't make the connection between their diabetes or their high blood pressure and kidney disease, and they are from families riddled with these problems," said Thomas Hostetter, M.D., director of NKDEP. He then observed that this lack of understanding serves as "clear evidence of the desperate need to help people become more literate about their health."

NKDEP will evaluate the effectiveness of its pilot efforts by measuring changes in knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices through two surveys, one conducted before the campaign's launch and a second a year later. The program will also monitor audience and media reactions to events and materials.

The program's 30 partners include both public agencies and private organizations.

For more information, visit the national NKDEP website at www.nkdep.nih.gov.

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