Engaging ethnic minority and majority blood donors in donor recruitment

Project opportunity

This Earmarked Scholarship project is aligned with a recently awarded Category 1 research grant. It offers you the opportunity to work with leading researchers both in academia and in Australian Red Cross Lifeblood (Lifeblood). Further, you will engage directly with the final users of the outputs in Lifeblood, and potentially with other blood collection agencies worldwide. The scholarship offers you the opportunity to contribute to a large project of national significance.

The overall objective of this project is to determine how to encourage blood donors to talk to others about donating with the overall aim of improving donor recruitment.

Australia faces ongoing challenges to ensure both the sufficiency of the blood supply and the suitability of the products donated to meet the transfusion needs of its increasingly ethnically diverse people. Donor-recruit-donor programs, such as telling others about blood donation (word-of-mouth) are a potentially powerful way to recruit blood donors. Talking about donation increases awareness, trust, commitment, and positive feelings toward donation, particularly in ethnic minority groups. However, donors seldom tell others about donating. In this collaboration between UQ, Deakin University, Lifeblood and the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia we will use co-design and experiments to determine how to most effectively motivate ethnic minority (specifically, donors of Chinese, Indian, and Pacific Islander backgrounds) and ethnic majority blood donors to recruit new donors using word-of-mouth. By the end of this program of work we want to have produced culturally relevant, validated resources that will benefit Australia by encouraging effective conversations about blood donation, to be implemented Australia-wide to promote blood donation in all communities.

Scholarship value

As a scholarship recipient, you'll receive: 

• living stipend of $28,854 per annum tax free (2022 rate), indexed annually
• tuition fees covered
• single Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC)

Supervisor

Professor Barbara Masser

School of Psychology

Email: b.masser@psy.uq.edu.au

Preferred educational background

Your application will be assessed on a competitive basis.

We take into account your

• previous academic record
• publication record
• honours and awards
• employment history.

A working knowledge of quantitative and qualitative research methods and working with ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse diverse communities would be of benefit to someone working on this project.

The applicant will demonstrate academic achievement in the field(s) of psychology, marketing, health promotion or related social science discipline and the potential for scholastic success.

A background or knowledge of donor behaviour, particularly regarding substances of human origin (blood, plasma etc) is highly desirable.

Latest commencement date

If you are the successful candidate, you must commence by Research Quarter 1, 2023. You should apply at least 3 months prior to the research quarter commencement date.

If you are an international applicant, you may need to apply much earlier for visa requirements.

How to apply

You apply for this project as part of your PhD program application.