Blood donation across the life course: the influence of life events on donor lapse

Abstract

This article examines how blood donation loyalty changes across the life course as a result of life events.Previous studies have shown that life events affect involvement in prosocial behavior, possibly as a result of loss of human and social capital. using registry data from the blood collection agency in the netherlands, linked to longitudinal survey data from the Donor InSight study (n = 20,560), we examined whether life events are related to blood donor lapse. childbirth, losing a job, and starting a job increase the likelihood of donor lapse, while health-related events (i.e., blood transfusion in a family member, death of a family member) decrease the likelihood of donor lapse. Moreover, results showed how social and practical concerns explain donors' decisions to donate blood after the occurrence of life events. We discuss theoretical implications for further studies on prosocial and health-related behavior.

Life events and donor lapse among blood donors in Denmark

“…Why and when do people give blood? Life events related to family composition, health of family and friends, and labour market transitions affect blood donor behaviour over the life course . Longitudinal studies from Germany and the Netherlands showed such life events to impact both entry to and exit from the donor pool, hereby illustrating the importance of longitudinal data to examine behavioural change across the blood donor career.…”

“…Individuals with more available time, and more human and social capital (e.g. available health and social connections) were indeed more likely to donate blood , and these mechanisms were found to partially explain the association between life events and donor lapse among Dutch donors .…”

“…Regarding entry to the donor pool, German data showed that people who recently divorced or finished their education were more likely to start donating blood, while people who got a child or experienced the death of a parent were less likely to start a donor career Soliman et al Regarding exit from the donor pool, Dutch data showed that childbirth, getting a job and losing a job increased the likelihood of donor lapse, while a blood transfusion for someone close and the death of a loved one decreased this likelihood .…”

“…To contribute to these country studies and identify more universal and possible context‐specific mechanisms for blood donor behaviour, we compared the association between life events and blood donor lapse between Denmark and the Netherlands by testing the repeatability of previous findings among a large sample of Danish donors. Moreover, by using register data from Statistics Denmark (SD) , linked to the Scandinavian Donations and Transfusions (SCANDAT) database , we were able to provide more accurate estimates of true effect sizes compared to findings from the Dutch survey study, for example by eliminating the possibility of false‐positive self‐reports as a result of recall bias.…”

Do deferred donors continue their donations? A large‐scale register study on whole blood donor return in the Netherlands

“…For all included donors, we identified their first whole blood donation attempt in the period 2013 to 2015 as target donation . Donor nonreturn (or lapse, as it is often called in the literature) was defined as not returning for a new donation attempt within 2 years after the donor was eligible to donate again after the target donation. Hence, the follow‐up period was as long as the ineligibility period plus 2 years or until the end of the inclusion period (December 31, 2017).…”