ABSTRACT
Australia’s blood donation system meets the criteria described by Richard Titmuss (Titmuss et al. 1997) as enabling altruistic, non-commoditized giving to a stranger. Donors are volunteers, unpaid, and give anonymously. They also represent a very small proportion of the pool of potential donors. Although recent specific data are not available, a much-cited figure is that donors represent 3 percent of the population – compared to the 30 percent who will require blood at some point (Stephen 2001). This is both a significant concern for transfusion medicine and the subject of most of the scholarly literature on Australian blood donation. What is it that motivates donors in Australia to donate, what are the factors that determine whether or not the intention to donate is translated into action, and what place does donation have in the broad context of social capital, social inclusion, and altruism? These questions are important and have been the focus of research, some of it funded by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service (Alessandrini 2005; Chmielewski et al. 2012; Fletcher et al. 2003; Hollingsworth and Wildman 2004). Individual and structural barriers to donating are a public policy concern, and social marketing efforts are being harnessed to address these barriers.
