Kidney Research UK

Background

Founded in 1961, Kidney Research UK (formerly the National Kidney Research Fund) is the largest funder of research into the prevention, treatment and management of kidney disease. Every year we allocate around 75% of our total charitable income to research funding, awarding around 20 new grants every year.

Our mission is to improve the quality of life of those with kidney disorders and to increase public awareness of kidney health. We therefore spend a further 15% of our income on awareness raising and 10% on caring for patients.

We are committed to understanding the causes of, and treatments for, kidney disease, and to making life better for the millions of patients suffering from it. This includes raising awareness of the need for early detection and prevention of kidney disease, particularly among high-risk ethnic minority groups.

Kidney Disease in minority ethnic groups

South Asian and African-Caribbean people are at a 3-5 times greater risk of developing chronic kidney disease than other ethnic groups. Complications of Type 2 diabetes and hypertension are largely to blame for the increased prevalence of kidney disease in these communities. This effect of this increased risk will have greater consequences as these communities age.

It has also been found that minority ethnic groups tend to be more at risk of complications arising from these conditions, explaining the increased prevalence of kidney disease and organ damage.

The tragedy is that for some, kidney disease is preventable, or could at least be delayed through interventions at an early stage. Raising awareness of the disease and encouraging people to come forward for early diagnosis and treatment is particularly difficult in minority ethnic communities as language and culture can act as barriers to communication and access to health services.

A Better Life through Education and Empowerment (ABLE)

Recognising the need to work with these at-risk communities, Kidney Research UK launched a campaign in 2001 to highlight the incidence of kidney disease in ethnic minority groups, reduce the incidence of chronic kidney disease amongst such groups and, where it could not be avoided, ensure early referral, optimal treatment and equality of access to dialysis and transplantation.

Supported with funding from the Department of Health and the Big Lottery Fund, the ABLE campaign, (A Better Life through Education and Empowerment), comprises a number of initiatives across England that seek to work with local ethnic minority communities to achieve these aims. Starting with a pilot study in Brent, which established a health screening facility in the heart of an minority ethnic community, the campaign has subsequently rolled out five further projects: three in Leicester, Southall and Birmingham, and two looking at diabetes and organ donation in ethnic minority communities.

The Leicester Project started in Summer 2003 and is already proving very successful at assessing levels of awareness and knowledge of kidney disease in the South Asian community, as well as among health professionals in primary care. The project aims to produce educational materials, which if effective, could be disseminated nationally.

This increased risk of diabetes and hypertension is explained by a combination of genetic predisposition, diet, salt intake and lack of exercise.

The West London Project, based in Southall, aims to research comparative levels of awareness and risk, as well as prevalence rates of Chronic Kidney Disease, within the local South Asian and White European communities. An important point of the project will be to examine the association between chronic kidney disease and coronary heart disease.

The African-Caribbean Project in Birmingham targets both the relatives of patients and the wider African-Caribbean community. Working with GPs, it is delivering an information and PR campaign to encourage this community to take preventative action, and to control their blood pressure and diabetes.

In early 2006, the Diabetes Patient Pathway Project will be assessing how South Asian patients with diabetes access local healthcare services, and their health outcomes. South Asians with diabetes are ten times more likely to develop kidney failure than White Caucasian diabetics. The project is located across three sites in Leicester, Luton and London.

Finally, the Organ Donation Project, launched in May 2006, is a unique research project designed to compare different attitudes to organ donation and transplantation amongst Caucasian, Afro-Caribbean and South Asian communities. This was setup because of shortage of organ donors from ethnic minority groups. The study aims to identify barriers to organ donation in the hope of improving organ donation rates within these communities.

Across all of ABLE's projects, the dissemination of the findings, advice and best practice will involve the services of Peer Educators. They are active members of the ethnic minority communities targeted in the projects. As they are also trained in health promotion, they are able to deliver important messages in a culturally sensitive manner. This unique model has proven to be very successful in overcoming the barriers to early detection and prevention of kidney disease in high-risk ethnic minority groups.

Kidney Research UK

April 2007