Attitudes toward blood donation incentives in the United States: implications for donor recruitment

Abstract

Blood credits and cholesterol and PSA screening would be well received at all donation sites. Gifts, compensatory incentives, and tokens of appreciation appeal more to younger donors. These data may allow blood centers to optimize recruitment by tailoring limited incentive resources more effectively.

Voluntary Blood Donation among Students - A Cross-Sectional Study on Knowledge and Practice vs. Attitude

“…Donors attracted by cash were 60 percent more likely to have a risk for transfusion-transmissible infections. The probability of being an at-risk donor were higher among individuals attracted by tickets to events [21]. However, the study by Sanchez et al, also suggested that offering blood credits and (though to a lesser extent) items of limited value could be safe and effective strategies for retaining donors [22].…”

Blood Donation, Payment, and Non-Cash Incentives: Classical Questions Drawing Renewed Interest

“…Research from other areas indicates that a crowding-out effect due to payment might occur [41][42][43], but this cannot be readily transferred to blood donation. In studies asking for future blood donation behaviour, a crowdingout effect has not been shown [44][45]. A study specifically designed to examine crowding out in a real life donation situation has been conducted in Sweden by Mellström and Johannesson.…”

“…However, some empirical data indicates that unlike cash payment, which is more attractive to low-income groups with higher transmission risks, incentives are not problematic in terms of blood safety, because they are not necessarily tied to such groups with problematic risk profiles [45]. Furthermore, if incentives were made attractive to all kinds of donor groups, the safety concerns relevant in payment would not apply at all.…”

An Economic Analysis of Global Policy Proposals to Prohibit Compensation of Blood Plasma Donors

“…As an example of efforts to identify nonmonetary means of inducing blood donations, Glynn, Williams, Nass, Bethel, Kessler, Scott, Fridey, Kleinman, and Schreiber (2003) found that incentives most likely to encourage donation among American whole-blood donors included cholesterol screening, prostatespecific antigen screening, and blood credits. Of course, cholesterol and prostate-specific antigen screenings are not needed on a regular basis, suggesting that those would not likely be able to serve as consistent incentives for plasmapheresis donation.…”