World Blood Donor Day

Friday 14 June marks the 20-year anniversary of World Blood Donor Day. The World Health Organisation (WHO), its partners, and international communities will celebrate the theme, ‘20 years of celebrating giving: thank you blood donors!’

The WHO seeks to achieve four outcomes from the 2024 event:

• To thank and recognize the millions of voluntary blood donors who have contributed to the health and well-being of millions of people around the world.
• To showcase the achievements and challenges of national blood programmes and share best practices and lessons learned.
• To highlight the continuous need for regular, unpaid blood donation to achieve universal access to safe blood transfusion.
• To promote a culture of regular blood donation among young people and the general public and increase the diversity and sustainability of the blood donor pool.

From blood bank to Research Bank - ACU's contribution

ACU’s health and sociology research has made valuable contributions to Australia’s understanding of blood donation motivators, benefits, and place in developing a better understanding of community health.

Having an understanding about attitudes, motivational outreach, and blood donor retention strategies provides valuable paths forward for improving and maintaining blood donation participation within Australia.

ACU academics have also made valuable contribution to studies supported by blood donations and thei impact on health outcomes, particularly for women, are also supported by blood donation.

You can read examples of research from the open access articles below:

• What motivates men to donate blood? A systematic review of the evidence
  
  
• The effects of a culturally-tailored campaign to increase blood donation knowledge, attitudes and intentions among African migrants in two Australian states: Victoria and South Australia
  
  
• Evaluation of the impact of a personalised post-donation SMS on the retention of whole blood donors
  
  
• Hepcidin is a better predictor of iron stores in premenopausal women than blood loss or dietary intake
  
• Associations between dietary iron and zinc intakes, and between biochemical iron and zinc status in women.

You can also read these full texts and more of ACU’s research about benefitting from blood donation in the institutional repository, ACU Research Bank.