Geographical Distribution of Blood Donation in Tucson Latino Population

Abstract

Although blood donation in the United States has been studied extensively to determine motivating factors and interventions to increase donation rates, there is little to no research available for the United States Latino population, which donation rate is less than one percent (France et al., 2007). In search for answers as to why these donation rates are so low for Latinos in the U.S., the study first aimed to survey several samples and obtain data from focus groups to analyze a well-collected and extensive qualitative data set. However, as the research plan developed, it became clear that it was not certain whether non-white Latinos in the US had proper access to blood donation drives or centers. The city of Tucson provided great opportunity for this study as there is a large Latino population without being entirely homogenous in its demographics. Over the course of six months, data was collected from the American Red Cross in order to assess the amount of blood donations occurring per Tucson zip code each month. It was hypothesized that low donation rates would be due to lower accessibility of blood donation drives in zip codes with a higher percent of Latinos. The goal was to thoroughly understand why those geographical barriers may have been in place. As a result, the data showed that blood donation drives were in fact occurring at a lower rate in zip codes with higher Latino density, even though several of those same zip codes had some of the highest populations in Tucson.