THE CHINESE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PROJECT
In Seattle alone, we have about 119,000 ethnically Chinese individuals. Despite their strong population presence, only less than 0.05% donated their blood in 2017. Lack of knowledge about the importance of blood donation, negative cultural perception on blood donation and FDA Restriction (preventing any individual who travel to certain region in China to donate blood for up to 3 years) are the main factors that prevented Chinese individuals to donate.
BACKGROUND
Around mid- 2019, the FDA updated their Yellow Book by removing the anti-malarial chemoprophylaxis for travelers to China. Hence, people who travel frequently to China can freely donate their blood in the United States without the need to wait for 3 years.
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
Given that we no longer have the travel restriction, our team is in the best position to launch a strategic and innovative approaches to encourage Chinese individuals in Seattle (and its surrounding area) to donate blood. Our cross-functional (technical and non-technical) team will be given the opportunity to identify, design and test various strategies at local college and high school campuses. The goal of this project is to educate Chinese individuals about the importance of blood donation and encouraging them to donate blood voluntarily or as a paid research donor. Throughout the project, we will perform the following:
Target market behavioral research and analysis
Strategic planning (technical and non-technical)
Solution/strategy design (technical and non-technical)
Wireframing and prototyping (technical only)
Pilot testing and AB testing (education and recruitment efforts)
Performance analysis
Project report and presentation
TARGET MARKET HIGHLIGHT
At the University of Washington alone (Seattle Campus), we have close to 4,000 students from Mainland China. When the FDA-mandated restriction was still in effect, we already have about 250 Chinese donors from the University of Washington's Seattle campus (Approximately 6% of the total blood donors who donated their blood in 2018 at UW Seattle campus). In addition, we will also work with the Little Masters Club (one of our project partners) to raise awareness and recruit donors from various high schools across the East King County region. We are aiming to recruit, at the very least, 50 blood donors from the Chinese community throughout our project period.
