A Community-Driven Intervention for Improving Biospecimen Donation in African American Communities

Introduction: Human biospecimens are an invaluable resource for addressing cancers and other chronic diseases. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of an educational intervention on biospecimen knowledge and attitudes. Methods: The participants consisted of 112 African Americans, 18 years and older, and who had not provided biospecimens for any health-related research in the past. A total of 55 participants received the educational brochure, and 57 received the educational video. The main outcomes of the study were knowledge and attitudes for biospecimen donation. This information was collected pre- and post-intervention. Results: The average knowledge scores increased (p < 0.0001) and the average attitude scores for biospecimen donation improved (p < 0.0001) post-intervention for both the video and brochure conditions. There was an interaction between the intervention condition and knowledge where the participants who received the educational video showed a greater increase in knowledge pre-to-post compared to those who received the educational brochure (p = 0.0061). There were no significant interactions between the two intervention conditions for attitudes toward biospecimen donation. Discussion: The results of this study demonstrated the feasibility and efficacy of an academic institution collaborating with the African American community in developing educational tools for biospecimen donation.