Social Network Initiative Helps Increase Organ Donations

An initiative by the online social network Facebook (Menlo Park, CA, USA), allowing members to specify “Organ Donor” as part of their profile, has helped boost organ donor registration rates.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD, USA) reviewed the online registration activity in US state registries for the weeks following Facebook's organ donor initiative, launched on May 1, 2012. They found that on the first day of the initiative, there were 13,054 new online registrations, representing a 21.1-fold increase over the baseline average of 616 registrations. This first-day effect ranged from 6.9-fold in Michigan to 108.9-fold in Georgia, and registration rates remained elevated in the following 12 days. The researchers added that long-term significance would be known only when measured in terms of the impact on organ supply. The study was published on June 18, 2013, in the American Journal of Transplantation.

“Our research speaks to on-going efforts to address the organ availability crisis in the United States. It also suggests that social media and social networks may be valuable tools in re-approaching refractory public health problems,” said lead author Andrew Cameron, MD, PhD. “However, the bump we saw did diminish over weeks, implying that more work is needed to assure sustainability or 'virality' in this case.”

Facebook users who are already organ donors can add that information to their Facebook Timeline and those who are not organ donors can find links to official organ donation registries and instantly enroll. To register, the donor needs to go to Timeline, click on “Life Event,” and then “Health & Wellness.” The option for “Organ Donor” will then be available. At that point, the potential donors can add when and where they have registered, as well as relate their own personal stories on why they have decided to become organ donors.

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