Cardiovascular risk screening in a healthy population: Gauging the interest of blood donors in electronic health information

Volunteer blood donation is an opportunity to give donors health information not exclusively related to routine screening for transfusion transmissible infectious disease. Examples of additional testing include total cholesterol and HbA1C. Such screening also gives valuable insights into community prevalence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk. However, little is known about blood donor interest in these results. Against this background, we decided to find out how often post donation cholesterol results were retrieved. All blood donors in 2012 had a total non-fasting cholesterol measurement determined at each blood donation. They were informed how to retrieve their results from the blood center's web site using a unique identifying number to ensure confidentiality. Total cholesterols were measured using a Beckman Coulter AU680 chemistry analyzer. 191,942 donors took part in the study. The percentage males and females with borderline cholesterol (200-239 mg/dL) were 18.4% and 20.1%, respectively. High cholesterols (≥240 mg/dL) were present in 5.2% males and 5.8% females. Donors with normal, borderline, and high cholesterols retrieving their results were 13.1%, 18.2%, and 18.1% respectively. With regard to cardiovascular disease risk, although the number of donors retrieving their cholesterol results was in the minority, those with elevated cholesterols did so more often than those with normal cholesterols. The blood donor setting could provide additional opportunities for identification, education and surveillance of cardiovascular disease risk among ostensibly healthy adults.