South Dakota State University research targets Native American organ donation

South Dakota State University
Photo: As part of a project to encourage Native Americans to check the donor box on their driver’s license applications, professor Nancy Fahrenwald and her team designed the two posters behind her. Over the next five years, she will do even more to help native people dealing with kidney disease through her work with Sanford Research and the new Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health in Sioux Falls.

Americans have a 1 in 10 chance of suffering from kidney disease, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For Native Americans, the risk doubles.

More than 112,000 people are on the organ transplant list, and a disproportionate number of those are Native Americans, according to Nancy Fahrenwald, associate professor at South Dakota State University’s College of Nursing. But with SDSU’s share of a $13.5 million grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Disparities awarded to Sanford Research and its partners, Fahrenwald hopes to improve the outlook for native people and their families facing kidney disease.

The five-year grant brings together the tribal communities and health care professionals through the establishment of a Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health in Sioux Falls under the leadership of Amy Elliott, director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Prevention Research at Sanford Research/USD. This center will then work with tribal leaders to educate and engage the communities in ways that will improve health care for American Indians in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota.

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