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A library of TikToks to engage diverse populations to hematopoietic stem cell donation

Bone Marrow Transplantation (2024)Cite this article

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TikTok is a rapidly growing social media platform where users develop, interact with, and share short vertical videos (TikToks). Given TikTok’s large userbase of young-adults [1], we hypothesized donation education TikToks could support the recruitment of committed stem cell donors from needed demographic groups.

In 7/2020, we launched a committee to develop, review, and disseminate donation education TikToks. Committee members included community advocates, donation stakeholders [2], and a transplant hematologist. The committee organized training sessions (e.g. youtu.be/PtIBUBseZUk) to support TikTok development, and reviewed draft TikToks for content accuracy, cultural competency, and design. All TikTok performers provided consent for their TikToks to be shared across social media. From 9/2020-3/2024, the committee developed 585 donation education TikToks (median length 20 s, range 5–186) which were published across a network of TikTok channels including a national channel (tiktok.com/@stemcellclub) and those engaging university campuses (e.g. tiktok.com/@munstemcellclub) or specific demographics (e.g. tiktok.com/@chinesestemcell).

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Data availability

For original data, please contact wbfingrut@mdanderson.org.

References

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Acknowledgements

We thank all TikTok performers (and especially those with personal connections to donation who shared their stories) and the members of the TikToks Save Lives committee for developing and sharing stem cell donation TikToks. Thank you also to Ryder of tiktok.com/@rydercalmdown (https://rydercalmdown.com/) for support with TikTok training. Stem Cell Club is supported by funding from the Canadian Blood Services BloodTechNet Grant, Canadian Federation of Medical Students, and Doctors of BC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stem Cell Club, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Brady Park, Kyla Pires, Cathy (Yin) Jian, Lauren Sano, Noémie Laganière, Margarita A. Conway, Jesse Henstridge-Goudie, Anastasia Pavlenkova, Shirin Pedram, Sylvia Okonofua, Farnaz Farahbakhsh & Warren B. Fingrut

  2. University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Brady Park

  3. Western University, London, ON, Canada

    Cathy (Yin) Jian & Lauren Sano

  4. University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Noémie Laganière

  5. Memorial University, St. John’s, NL, Canada

    Margarita A. Conway & Jesse Henstridge-Goudie

  6. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

    Anastasia Pavlenkova & Shirin Pedram

  7. Swab the World, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Alexa Gélinas, Bilguissou Bah & Richard Fattouh

  8. University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Alexa Gélinas, Bilguissou Bah & Richard Fattouh

  9. Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, Division of Cancer Medicine, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Warren B. Fingrut

  10. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Warren B. Fingrut

Authors
  1. Brady Park
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  2. Kyla Pires
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  3. Cathy (Yin) Jian
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  4. Lauren Sano
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  8. Anastasia Pavlenkova
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  12. Bilguissou Bah
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  13. Richard Fattouh
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  14. Farnaz Farahbakhsh
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  15. Warren B. Fingrut
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Contributions

BP and WBF conceived of the TikTok library, led its development, and designed the study; all authors developed and reviewed the TikToks; LS, SO, FF, and WBF led national donor recruitment campaigns using the TikToks; BP, KP, CJ, LS, RF, and WBF assembled and analyzed the data; BP, KP, CJ, and WBF designed the figures and tables; BP and WBF wrote the manuscript; and all authors interpreted the data, reviewed and edited the manuscript, and approved the submitted version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Warren B. Fingrut.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Park, B., Pires, K., Jian, C.(. et al. A library of TikToks to engage diverse populations to hematopoietic stem cell donation. Bone Marrow Transplant (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41409-024-02294-3

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