Regional variation in the modeling of donation frequency: the case of Héma‐Québec, Canada

Abstract

Such knowledge of the geography of blood donations makes it possible to better target certain regions when planning new blood drives, to ensure a constant blood supply.

Blood donation clusters in Québec, Canada (2003–2008): spatial variations according to sex and age

“…The presence of regional educational institutions as well as other public services in cities far from the Montreal metropolitan area might also explain the high rate cluster's location, a result consistent with the "regional affiliation" hypothesis brought by Cloutier et al [13,37]. Complementary qualitative research has led to hypothesize that social capital and place attachment in different in those regional "hubs", influencing blood donation behaviour.…”

“…These "predictors" are quite common in the literature and refer to the blood collection sites spatial accessibility and to socio-economic and demographic characteristics [11][12][13][14][15]. Some of those variables are known to have a negative relation to donation rates: 1) road network distance between the donor's place of residence and the collection site, 2) population density, 3) unemployment rate, 4) percentage of immigrants; while others have a positive relation to it: 5) average individual total income, and 6) percentage of university graduates.…”

“…As described in a previous study [13], only allogeneic donations from people aged between 18 and 69 were retained (age being the first eligibility criteria), including attempted donations (donations not collected due to deferral or another reason) since, even if the blood collection did not take place, the would-be donor generally goes to a collection site with the intention to For each blood donation, age -calculated from the date of the donation-, gender and residential donor's postal code were available in the database, making it possible to compute the number of cases for the 101…”

“…Finally, Cloutier et al [13] presented a map of blood donor rates for the administrative regions of Québec. All these previous works [11][12][13][14][15] have demonstrated that blood donation rate varies significantly across space, no matter the geographical scale retained. Moreover, two studies have demonstrated that this indicator is positively spatially autocorrelated [11,15].…”

“…To fill this gap, some interesting studies, which integrate a geographic dimension, have recently been conducted in different contexts, e.g. Canada [11][12][13], Netherlands [14] and Germany [15]. In methodological terms, the exercise consists in the joint use of blood donation data provided by a blood agency and several variables extracted from a national census.…”