Department: Health Policy
Faculty Mentor: Sara Singer, Professor of Health Policy and of Medicine
Increasing blood donation
Sierra Leone has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, and one of the leading causes is hemorrhage during childbirth — made fatal by a chronic shortage of donated blood. Blood shortages affect a wide range of urgent medical needs across the region, from surgery to childhood illness, yet demand consistently outpaces supply. To understand what actually motivates people to donate voluntarily, Vincent is partnering with national blood services in Sierra Leone and Ghana to test whether non-cash incentives or informational nudges can increase donation rates. By generating evidence across two countries at very different income levels, this work aims to produce findings that the WHO and other bodies can use to address blood shortages across low-income countries worldwide.