The BOLD Project is a study about organ donation. When people give permission for their organs to be donated to others, it is called organ donation. There are two types of organ donation. Live donation happens when a living person voluntarily decides to donate an organ, most often a kidney, to someone else. Deceased donation is when a person who has previously agreed to be an organ donor donates an organ; this occurs only when the person has been declared dead by two or more physicians.
The BOLD Project is part of a five-year National Institutes of Health grant (R01DK098780, “Blood Donor Drives and High School Students to Educate People about Organ Donation”) awarded to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). The grant has formed a partnership between UCSD, the San Diego Blood Bank, and the San Diego Science Educators Association. These organizations are working with California Donate Life, a registry for potential organ donors in California.
The project surveys high school students about their willingness to register for organ donation. The number of blood donors willing to register will be compared to the number of non-blood donors willing to register; the two groups will be from the same population. If the study supports the hypothesis that blood donors are more willing to donate organs than non-blood donors, then the nation’s organ procurement organizations can direct their recruitment efforts toward a likely audience, blood donors. This would allow those organizations to use their assets in a more effective manner and may increase the number of organ donors available.
A secondary objective is to test the effectiveness of a brief educational session that includes a video about organ donation. By comparing willingness to donate before and after the educational session, we will see if the educational video has a significant impact on viewers.
High school students are major contributors to the project: the video was created entirely by students, the project logo design and name were generated by students, and the survey is being conducted by students during school blood drives and other school events. Student contributions to the project help ensure a culturally appropriate approach to the targeted student population.
For more information on the BOLD project, please use the contact page.