Evaluating the role of blood collection centers in public health: a status report.

Overview

Blood centers have a central role in the community through recruitment and donation, and these community interactions enable blood centers to have a critical role in public health. Some public health initiatives are inherent in the blood center, such as providing human immunodeficiency virus educational material, whereas other initiatives have been actively created, such as cardiovascular screening, as a means to increase blood donor rates and increase the blood center's community interaction. These public health initiatives have been inconsistently practiced by blood collection centers over many years. An understanding of the current literature and exploring the potential role of blood centers in public health, while considering cost and value of these programs, are necessary for blood centers to evaluate the value of implementing these programs. The studies do not support a significant improvement in donor health or significant increase in donation rates through these public health initiatives. However, no study published thus far has been comprehensive enough or carried out long enough to adequately evaluate the value of providing health initiatives to donors.