The video above highlights 6 year old Hispanic boy Antonio Rieder’s pursuit of a suitable match for the bone marrow transplant he needs. Taylor Matt, a teenager from New York who has also struggled to find a match through the registry because he is a quarter Native American. These stories are not uncommon among ethnic minorities here in the United States. Below is a chart provided by Be The Match, the National Marrow Donor Program illustrating the ethnic breakdown of potential donors.

Potential Adult Donors Number % of Total

African American or Black More than 550,000
8%
American Indian/Alaska Native Nearly 83,000
1%
Asian Nearly 520,000
7%
White More than 5.3 million
73%
Multiple Race More than 210,000
3%
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander More than 10,0000
1%
Hispanic or Latino Nearly 690,000
9%

I contacted Lynn Treadwell, from Be the Match, with a few questions about ethnic disparities among donors and to learn more about what strides the organization is taking to bring greater awareness to minority communities. Below is a portion of her e-mail response.

At present, each year the number of racial and ethnic minorities we are recruiting is close to or surpasses that group’s representation in the overall population. Specifically the Be The Match Registry has higher proportions than the Census of Multiple Race, American Indians and Asians due to strategic goals for recruitment to increase the genetic diversity of the registry.

We have a diverse group of recruiters working throughout the country to engage with diverse communities to raise awareness –– going where the community is to create awareness.

We also focus on recruiting among young and diverse populations of healthy, altruistic individuals, such as police and firefighters and college students.  Forty-six percent—nearly 210,000—of the potential donors who joined the NMDP’s Be The Match Registry in 2008 were from diverse racial and ethnic communities.

It is important to note that the diseases treated by transplant occur in all people of all races and ethnicities fairly equally, so the percentage of patients who need an unrelated marrow or cord blood transplant parallels the percentage of the total population (e.g., the US population is 13 percent Black or African American, so 13 percent of the people who need a transplant are Black or African American).

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