Information and Resources

66 Million Eligible Blood Donors Lost

Aug. 1, 2007 - Sixty-six million fewer Americans are eligible to donate blood than previously thought -- cutting the donor pool from 60% to 38% of U.S. residents.

U.S. blood centers have been operating under the assumption that 177 million Americans could give blood. But that's a "gross overestimate," find University of Minnesota researchers Jeffrey McCullough, MD, William Riley, PhD, and colleagues.

That 177 million figure overestimated the actual number of eligible U.S. blood donors -- 111 million -- by 60%.

"The finding that blood donation rates are calculated with a 60% overestimate is a tremendously important piece of scientific knowledge," McCullough tells WebMD. McCullough, professor of transfusion medicine, laboratory medicine, and pathology and director of the biomedical engineering institute at the University of Minnesota, serves as scientific director for the St. Paul Regional Red Cross Blood Service.

There are 31 factors -- ranging from recent tattoos to HIV infection to heart disease -- that either make a person's blood unsafe or make it unsafe for a person to donate blood. Until now, estimates of the U.S. blood-donor pool failed to take these factors into account.

"Ever since the dark days of the AIDS epidemic, blood safety has skyrocketed. But if you look at all the factors you now screen for, nobody had ever thought to add those up," McCullough says.

"The blood-donation community has been so focused on safety and the challenge of securing safe blood, they haven't had the chance to look at the biggest picture of all -- the actual number of eligible donors that are out there," Riley tells WebMD. Riley is associate dean of health care finance and management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Until now, blood-donation experts saw 60% of Americans as potential blood donors. In reality, only 38% of Americans could give blood if they wanted to.