The overall goal of the project is to expand the Charles Drew Community Blood Donor Program from the St. Louis Metropolitan area to the Kansas City Metropolitan area and to increase the number of cord blood stem cell donors to the St. Louis Cord Blood Bank from the St. Louis African-American community. Blood transfusion therapy is a widespread treatment option for patients who experience sequelae associated with sickle cell disease. The most serious complication regarding blood transfusion therapy for primary and secondary prevention of stroke in children with sickle cell disease is red blood cell alloimmunization, which occurs in approximately 20% of patients receiving this therapy. In the case of alloimmunization to red blood cells, future blood transfusion therapy may be difficult to implement because of inability to find compatible blood. For this purpose the St. Louis Metropolitan area Charles Drew Community Blood Donor Program was established in partnership with the American Red Cross Missouri-Illinois Region to increase the number of African-American blood donors and to identify directed donors who match the recipients. Three institutions will participate in this proposed study, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis University School of Medicine, and University of Missouri Medical School - Kansas City. We will test the following hypothesis: 1) In a metropolitan area where no previous effort has been made to recruit African-Americans, increasing the awareness of the benefit of donating blood for children with sickle cell disease, will increase the first time donation rate of African-Americans by 300% over three years, based on using the first six months of blood donations of the program as the baseline rate of donation, 2) Highlighting the potential benefit of cord blood donations for children with sickle cell disease in the St. Louis community will result in at least a 10%(approximately 400) of the eligible AA births donating cord blood to St. Louis Cord Blood Bank after the third year of the Charles Drew Cord Blood Donor Program. We will evaluate the impact of the Charles Drew Blood and Cord Blood Donor Programs with following Aims: 1) To determine if the Charles Drew Community Blood Donor Program can be successfully expanded to another metropolitan area, 2) To determine if the successful strategy used by the Charles Drew Community Blood Donor Program to increase the number of African-American blood donors can be expanded to increase the number of African-American cord blood donations within the St. Louis Metropolitan area, and 3) To determine the effectiveness of Charles Drew Blood Donor Program In decreases the morbidity associated with blood transfusions therapy for children with strokes. We believe after completion of this project, the strategies used for expanding both blood and cord blood donations in the African-American communities, will not only improve the quality of life for children and adults with sickle cell disease, but will also serve as model to increase blood and cord blood stem cell donations in other African-American communities across the nation.
