Date of Publication

1-23-2008

Abstract

Introduction: Despite rising demand, blood donation has remained stagnant in recent years, except for donation spikes that occurred in periods after major national crises such as the September 11th attacks in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. During times between such events, the majority of blood donations are due to repeat donors. The remainder of the blood supply is supplemented by one time or infrequent donors who have since stopped giving blood, i.e. lapsed donors. A third group of donors, designated disaster donors has been identified. These are individuals who donated blood due to these disasters but who have since stopped giving blood. A vast body of information exists on the motivating factors that bring people to donate and the barriers that prevent them from coming back. For the purposes of this study, three groups of lapsed blood donors were identified. A survey was conducted to investigate the perception these donors have of the current blood supply, motivating factors for their past donations, and their opinions on potential ways to bring them back as consistent repeat donors.

Advisor(s)

Carol Dembeck, American Red Cross - New England Region

Peter Nattress, American Red Cross - New England Region

Jan Carney, MD, MPH, University of Vermont College of Medicine

Mark Fung, MD, PhD, University of Vermont College of Medicine

Agency

American Red Cross - Northern New England Region

Subjects

Health Communication and Health Information Technology, Public Health Infrastructure

Notes

Published as Fung M, Balderama G, Chen P, Clay M, Dorsky S, McIlree C, Sisemoore J, Stinnett-Donnely J, Dembeck C, Nattress P, Camey J. Are lapsed donors who last donated after a disaster different from lapsed donors in general? Transfusion. 2008;48:38A–39A. (abstract)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License

A Survey of Motivations for 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and General Lapsed Donors in Northern Vermont

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