Swab right! : A campaign to increase the number of stem cell donors among youth in NTU

• Main Authors: Chen, Jesslyn Yiqi, Chua, Jones Xun Hao, Muhammad Nurhadi Taha
• Other Authors: -
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Social sciences::Communication
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/147237
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Swab Right! is a youth-centric communication campaign aimed at encouraging NTU students aged 18-25 to register as a blood stem cell donor. Every day, six Singaporeans are diagnosed with a blood disease and at any one time, 50 patients are waiting for a transplant. However, due to the low number of donors in the registry, most of these patients are unable to find a match and eventually pass away from their illness. Our formative research provided insights that youths were unaware of new developments in blood stem cell donation technology (i.e. that the procedure is relatively painless) and still associated blood stem cell donations with bone marrow donations (i.e. procedure that requires surgery), resulting in fearful attitudes towards being a donor. Thus, our campaign sought to increase the knowledge and positive sentiments of blood stem cell donations among youths, specifically those in NTU. At the end of our three-month campaign, we succeeded in improving the knowledge levels and positive sentiments of non-donors. An increase in sign-ups as a result of our campaign was also recorded, thereby increasing the pool of available donors in Singapore. This report elucidates how the campaign reached out to its target audience using online engagements supplemented by offline on-the-ground strategies, circumventing some limitations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The campaign’s overall effectiveness was evaluated using both qualitative and quantitative criteria, with the campaign’s strengths, limitations, sustainability efforts and recommendations for future blood stem cell donation campaigns detailed as well.