Learning to Donate

Background

Without blood donors, there are no blood products to transfuse and no plasma for pharmaceutical drug production. Four million patients are annually treated with blood-derived products in Europe alone, given by voluntary donors. Yet, as little as 2-3% of the population is registered as blood donors, and donor numbers have been decreasing over the last decades.

At the same time, the demand for specific blood products is increasing. Hence, it is crucial that a country’s donor pool is sufficient to ensure access to every needed blood type and plasma product. Targeted recruitment and retention of donors is vital to meet these demands.

Aim

LEARN-DO intends to develop and market a fun and interactive knowledge intervention to stimulate key motivators and overcome key barriers for individuals to become blood donors.

Approach

We target two main stakeholder groups with this intervention:

1. Individuals (children and adults) who can be potential future donors.
2. Blood collection agencies that need to recruit future donors to meet the demands for blood products.

We propose three installation elements that manipulate key barriers and motivators of blood donation:

• A Donor Picture Pillar that provides information about blood donation and shows patient and donor stories.
• A "Donation Experience" to decrease fears and psychological distance towards blood donation.
• A Conversation Couch to stimulate talking about donation among participants.

Organisation and Impact

The project is organised in four work packages (WP). The overarching project management (WP1, led by the PI at the host institute) will ensure that the impact proposition will include all scientific (WP2), technical/education (WP3), and business (WP4) aspects.

LEARN-DO can thoroughly change the recruitment of future donors and improve the recruitment strategy of blood collection agencies by making them more evidence-based, fun, interactive, and targeted to specific groups, including families and members from ethnic minorities.