Periodic Reporting for period 4 - DONORS (Who gives life? Understanding, explaining and predicting donor behaviour)
Período documentado: 2023-08-01 hasta 2024-07-31
Main aim of DONORS: Propose and test a life course model of prosociality, including (changes in) individual determinants, network characteristics and societal contexts to understand and predict donor motivations and behaviour.
This main aim is broken down in the following objectives:
• First, examine which individual and social network characteristics determine donor motivations and behaviour over the life course (WP1)
• Second, study to what extent and which genes contribute to explaining variation in prosociality and donor behaviour (WP2)
• Third, explain variation in individual donor behaviour across societal contexts (WP3)
Along the main aim and objectives, we have achieved the following. We contributed to development of theories on prosocial behaviour and altruism and tested our model in several empirical studies, using different observational, survey, registry and experimental (longitudinal) data. Together, this has contributed to innovating the study of blood, plasma, and organ donation by applying an integrated theoretical life-course framework, grounded in social and behavioral sciences to unravel how individual agency, relations within social networks and across life-stages, and socio-cultural context impact donation. This has resulted in a well-recognized multilevel model and shifted the dominant cross-sectional perspective on donation behavior to a dynamic one including attention to ethical considerations around blood and organ donation.
I have always been passionate about outreach and societal impact. During this project, I became even more intrigued by the importance of outreach and the relevance of research results for societal impact in the field of blood donation and transfusion, and cell and organ donation and transplantation. I regularly lecture for the Abbott Transfusion Health Institute, a non-profit platform to educate professionals in low-income countries on blood donation and transfusion and present, among others, the results of this project. I am a recognized expert for policymakers in blood donation and transfusion such as at the Finnish, Australian, Belgium Red Cross, and Turkish Red Crescent. They have all reached out to me during the project period to present ongoing work and key results. I contributed to the development and accreditation of the Dutch medical specialism profile Donor Health Care as expert in a Delphi consultation (2022) by adding a social science perspective. I developed a well-received exhibition in Science Museum Boerhaave (2023) in Leiden, the Netherlands about blood donation, using donor and patient stories to create awareness about donating. After having been exhibited in Science Museum Boerhaave, the installations were moved to the Dutch Ministry of Health in order to inform health professionals about the backgrounds of plasma (medicines) and the importance of plasma donation. This was further developed into a serious game for children, tested in NEMO Science Museum Amsterdam and now available on Play Store. A follow-up is supported by an ERC-Proof-of-Concept Grants (2023). Based on the scientific results of the DONORS project, we also organized a community based pop-up exhibition in Amsterdam to inform potential donors about blood and stem cell donation and the importance of a diverse donor pool to serve a diverse patient populations. This exhibit consisted of several paintings that were commissioned, based on short stories, that our research team developed around the main scientific conclusions of DONORS. The paintings were presented during speak sessions, which included all stakeholders, ranging from artists, to patients and donors, to policy-makers, clinicians and blood bank professionals.