Blood centers have lost young donors. What can they do?

The COVID-19 pandemic brought it all to a halt.

Blood donation professionals say the effect was more than temporary. With such campaigns slow to return to campuses, advocates suspect millions of high school and college students miss out on learning the importance of blood donation.

Post-pandemic blood donation levels rebounded among all age groups — except the youngest generations. The number of donors aged 16 to 24 plummeted by more than a third while those aged 25 to 34 fell by more than fifth, despite the rebound among older people.

“How do you rebound from that to have a sustainable blood supply?” said Jennifer Kapral, vice president of enterprise data strategy and management for Blood Centers of America, a national network of blood supply centers that conducted the analysis. “How do you engage with people when you’ve lost that first entry point?”

She and other industry leaders worry the generational gap could mean future blood shortages if something isn’t done to revive donation habits among the young. This summer, the American Red Cross declared its second-ever national blood crisis as donation levels fell to a four-year low.

“There’s a lot of concern over the aging of our donor base,” said Kate Fry, CEO of America’s Blood Centers, a separate national network of nonprofit community-based blood centers. “We’re starting to see that silver tsunami, where a lot of our donors are going to become the patients.”

Blood collection experts say reconnecting with young people is crucial as traditional donors age out.

“For decades, we’ve been able to rely on the generosity of the Baby Boomers generation,” said Armando Romero, associate director of transfusion medicine at Cedars-Sinai Health System in Los Angeles. “The numbers show they’ve made it a habit even when there’s not an emergency; they just happened to be at church or at their kid’s soccer game and saw a bloodmobile.”

The Red Cross said the national supply stabilized but, as older generations produce the next group of blood product consumers, their absence as donors threatens to further deplete reserves.

In July, an article co-authored by Kapral for the Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies spelled out the situation and its implications.

Blood donation 'a learned behavior'

The Blood Centers of America based its analysis on a database of donor demographics and donation frequency that the organization launched in 2018, with more than 25 million donor records tallying 126 million donation records dating to 2010.

The organization compared numbers from 2017 through 2019, just before the 2020 pandemic, with those from 2022 to 2024. The number of donors aged 16 to 24 dropped 37%, while those aged 25 to 34 fell 22%.

Meanwhile, the number of donors aged 35 to 54 inched up 5%, with increases successively higher with older age groups — 15% among those aged 55 to 64, 50% among those 64 to 73 and 72% among those 73 and older.

It’s worth noting that the 16-to-24 cohort still represented the largest donor group at 1.7 million, compared with 2.7 million before the pandemic.

“High school blood donations are often people’s first introduction to the process,” Romero said. “For a lot of them, there’s this peer factor. We don’t know if it’s that they want to save lives or if they just want to get out of third period, but it reduces fears about getting a needle in their arm if their friends are there.”

In a matter of six hours, a high school blood drive can collect 150 to 200 units of blood, he said.

Many campuses were slow to invite blood drives back, and often did so in a smaller capacity.

“Donating blood is a learned behavior,” Romero said, recalling drives at which 16-year-old first-time donors, nervous about being pricked by a needle, might ask a friend whether it hurts. “Then their friend says, ‘it doesn’t, you should go ahead and do it.’ It really is a learned behavior. But we missed out on three-plus years of people learning that.”

'We can't use the same tactics'

Fry said the 19 to 35 age group has always been challenging, which is why workplace-based blood drives are so important.

She said the pandemic accelerated migration patterns that frayed community ties as jobs were lost and people started working remotely, reducing community foundations that encouraged such giving.

Meanwhile, the pandemic hiatus gave blood collection professionals an opportunity to reevaluate their messaging. Among their conclusions: Outreach methods that motivated previous generations may not connect in the same way with Generation Z and younger millennials.

According to the Blood Centers of America analysis, boomers (aged 62 to 80) are likelier to equate service with citizenship, a mindset instilled by their Greatest Generation parents that responds to calls to “do one’s part” for society. Generation X (aged 46 to 61), meanwhile, take on that duty if they know there’s a need.

More than half of all blood donations still come from those two groups, the organization said.

Kapral said while every individual who donates is differently motivated, younger people are more likely to respond to transparency about the donation process and its impact, as well as peer-to-peer, social-media-driven efforts — such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge — originating from or encouraged within their community networks.

While blood collection campaigns once relied on mailers, phone calls and emails, Romero said it’s now necessary to adapt to new methods.

“We already know young folks are on their phones, so if we can appear on their feed that would be a helpful reminder,” he said. “We’re trying to meet donors where they’re at.”

Rather than waiting for a crisis, Kapral said, blood collection centers might find better results with more positive messaging — explaining to people what happens with their blood, how it specifically helps cancer patients or car accident victims.

Some donations programs find success

Kapral cited the We Give Blood campaign launched in 2024 as one successful model among younger people. The campaign, a collaboration between Abbott Laboratories and the Big 10 Conference, encourages friendly donation competition among universities, promoted on social media “in a more joyful, fun, competitive way,” she said.

Fry said centers also do more to let donors know how their blood is used. In some cases, donors might get a text letting them know their blood was shipped to a hospital, while another program encourages blood recipients to write thank-you letters anonymously shared with their donors.

Another strategy finding success, Romero said, is centers offering virtual-reality headsets to donors that they can wear while their blood is drawn, especially those with an aversion to needles.