The global inequality of blood supplies

By THE DATA TEAM

TODAY is World Blood Donor Day, celebrating those who each year make more than 112m blood donations. A single one can save up to three lives. Most of those lives are in rich countries, and not just because of better health care. Nearly 30% of blood donations occur in Europe, which has about a tenth of the world’s population. Sub-Saharan Africa, which has a larger share of the global population, accounts for less than 5% of blood supplies.

Our analysis shows that blood donations relative to a country’s population are strongly correlated with wealth. But where a country is located matters a lot, too. Rates of blood-giving in rich Middle Eastern countries are two to three times lower than those in similarly wealthy European countries. Europeans are also keener blood donors than Latin Americans. In places where the practice is unpopular, most of the blood supply is usually from paid donors or relatives of those who need transfusions. By contrast, most of the countries with the highest blood donation rates are among those where all givers do so for free and simply to help strangers.