Completed Projects - New Technologies for Neuroscience

A reliable supply of human blood plays a vital role in the healthcare system. Italy's transfusional system relies on voluntary, uncompensated donations, making exploring non-monetary methods to motivate donors and mitigate blood shortages imperative. Proposed strategies include symbolic awards, social media recognition, and targeted communication tailored for distinct donor groups.

Thanks to an already-established collaboration between IMT and Associazione Volontari Italiani del Sangue (AVIS), Italy's foremost NGO dedicated to blood collection, this project focuses on investigating how donors react to different communication strategies. On the one hand, the project will apply microeconometric techniques to an extensive administrative database offered by AVIS to evaluate existing policies to incentivize donors. The database contains detailed information on donations and donor profiles at the individual level from the Tuscany region, spanning from 2008 to 2023. On the other hand, the effectiveness of different communication strategies will be tested with a field experiment. By observing how different messages influence subsequent donor behaviour, the project aims to provide evidence on designing more effective mechanisms for retaining blood donors.