The organ and tissue donation unit at Western Health has launched a Vietnamese-language advertising and information campaign to spread the word about donation in one of largest migrant populations in Melbourne's west.

Western Health organ and tissue donation nurses Yasna Lara and Kylie Chalmers held focus groups with Vietnamese Australians in their 20s and 30s and found that there was a gap in what members of that community knew about organ donation.

"A lot of people hadn't discussed it or given it much thought and there were a lot of misconceptions such as how it happens, who is able to donate and would their religion allow it," Ms Lara said.

"We found that people overall support organ donation.

"The issue then is whether they've discussed it with their families."

Vietnamese language newspaper and radio ads will be run this week and printed information will be disseminated as part of DonateLife Week, which runs until Sunday.

The director of organ donation at Western Health, Dr Forbes McGain, said the campaign would be used as a template in other Vietnamese communities across Australia.

VIDEO: Dr McGain explains about organ donation below.

According to the 2011 donation and transplantation performance report, released at Western Hospital last month, 1001 people received organ transplants last year, up from 931 the year before.

That equates to 14.9 donors per million people last year, up from 11.3 in 2009 when the $151million DonateLife campaign started.

It's the first time the number of transplants has topped 1000 since the federal government committed the funding to lift organ donation rates. But Australia still lags behind nations such as Spain.

For more details about organ and tissue donation, visit Donate Life here.