Scant Supply
Blood banks and hospitals brace for a national blood shortage

By Kimberly Reeves
Photo: Corbis/William Jacoby
August 12, 1999

Blood banks are scrambling to find ways to cultivate reliable donors as new statistics indicate that a long-term, nationwide blood shortage could occur as early as next year.

According to a survey of 2,400 hospitals and blood centers conducted by the National Blood Data Resource Center this year, blood collection was down by 5.5 percent in 1997, while demand for blood units during the same time was up 3.7 percent. A total of 12.6 million units of whole blood were logged in the national survey, but if current trends hold, the country could be suffering real shortfalls by next year. For the first time in 50 years, demand for blood units will clearly surpass the nation’s donated blood supply.

The downward trend

“If you ask why that is, we’d have to say we don’t really know,” said Karen Shuse Lipton, executive director of the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB). The National Blood Data Resource Center is a subsidiary of the AABB. “We suspect we’re dealing with a new generation of blood donors that may be motivated in different ways. We’re concerned that we haven’t found the right method and that we haven’t done the proper education to create a new generation of blood donors.”

The San Diego Blood Bank has found a way to turn blood donation into a mega-event. Its San Diego Chargers Blood Drive is recognized by the AABB as a model of success. The 20-year-old event drew close to 2,600 donors to the Town & Country Convention Center and Resort last fall. More than 60 beds were set up on the floor of the convention center for the event, which was followed by a fashion show using San Diego Chargers football players and their families as models.

“It’s the biggest drive we do every year, by far,” said Faith Saculles, public affairs manager of the San Diego Blood Bank. “All the television stations are here. Some of the radio stations set up live broadcasts from the drive. I think it really focuses attention on the long-term presence of the blood bank in San Diego.”

Still, the San Diego Blood Bank suffers from two to three episodes of low blood supplies each year. For several weeks this summer, the blood bank was at 10 percent of its recommended in-house stock. Saculles estimates that roughly 40 percent of donated blood comes from the center’s bloodmobiles; the remaining 60 percent is collected at blood centers. In order to build up its donor base, the San Diego Blood Bank is scheduling as many blood drives at local high schools as possible.

“If we want to see a lifetime donor, we have to start early,” said Saculles, who estimates that a quarter of eligible students donate at each high school blood drive. “That’s really our motivation behind targeting the high schools. We want them to get into the habit that their grandfathers once had.”

Finding new recruits

The first major base of blood donors was cultivated during the high-demand days of World War II, Lipton said. To this day, the profile of a regular blood donor is a white, college-educated male between the ages of 30 and 50. The post-World War II bubble of donors, however, is aging and leaving the ranks.

In most areas, 5 percent of the eligible population donates blood. In New York City, that number drops to 2 percent. Linda Levi, spokesperson for the New York Blood Center, said any conclusions about why donations are low—a busy home life, a reliance on mass transit to get to and from work, a typically long workday, a more intrusive inquiry process to determine eligibility—are probably anecdotal. The New York Blood Center, which must generate at least 2,000 donations a day to supply the 200 hospitals in its service area, has turned to new gimmicks to draw in donors, offering telephone calling cards and frequent-flier miles. Each incentive has a limited shelf life, Levi said.

“Far too many people think they can rely on their families for a blood donation,” Levi said. “That’s really a luxury. Even if it’s your family, the blood has to be tested. You just can’t rely on it. Many people who never expect it are going to have to turn to the general blood supply.”

The National Blood Resource Data Center is updating the trends predicted from 1997 data, adding donation data from 1998 and the first half of 1999. That updated data will be presented at the AABB’s annual convention in San Francisco in November.

In the meantime, the AABB is developing a public-education campaign through a grant from the National Blood Foundation. The program, designed with the assistance of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, will be launched in public high schools this fall and will encourage students to donate blood. The goal, say blood bank officials, is to educate a young audience of potential donors about the need for regular blood donation.