A new program initiated by Facebook in May last year to help online donor registrations has seen a tremendous response.
Facebook has provided a successful way to bring awareness among people about organ shortage in the United States. The registration process is also very simple.
The program, which was started May 1, 2012, increased the number of people who registered as organ donors by 21-fold in just one day, says a new study from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Facebook allowed users to register on the official state donor site and add their status as "organ donors" and spread the word among friends.
"The short-term response was incredibly dramatic, unlike anything we had ever seen before in campaigns to increase the organ donation rate. And at the end of two weeks, the number of new organ donors was still climbing at twice the normal rate," said research leader, Andrew M. Cameron, M.D., Ph.D., and associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in a press release.
Since the program "Donate life America" was started on Facebook, more than 57,000 users registered themselves as organ donors. The first day of the campaign saw a significant increase of more than 21 times the average daily registration of 616 nationwide. The study showed that 13,012 new users registered themselves on the first day.
"If we can harness that excitement in the long term, then we can really start to move the needle on the big picture. The need for donor organs vastly outpaces the available supply and this could be a way to change that equation," Cameron added.
According to the study, more than 118,000 people are awaiting organ transplant due to the shortage of donors. The numbers have increased by 10-fold over the last 20 years, but the donors remain fairly static. Researchers estimate up to 10,000 potential donors die every year, but their organs cannot be used due to lack of authority from the deceased or family members at the time of death.
Although online registrations declined after 12-days of the program, the numbers still remained two times greater than the normal rate by the end of the study. Researchers are looking into various ways to bring added success to the initiative.
The findings are published in the American Journal of Transplantation.
