English Abstract Several ways of obtaining reliable information on the
spread of HIV among the general population in the different countries in the
world have been suggested, however, so far in Europe most proposals for such
screening have met with serious ethical and legal objections. Because the
majority of the more than 55,000,000 anti-HIV tests that have been carried
out in Europe since 1985 have been carried out on donor blood, the blood
donor population forms the largest well defined subpopulation from which
data on HIV infection are available. With knowledge of the demographic and
behavioral characteristics of the donor population it may be possible to use
the blood donor data to esimate the spread of HIV infections in the general
population. In this study, the donor and non-donor demographics of the
Northern part of the Netherlands are compared. Donorships is related to
gender, age and city size. The association with age is strong and remains
after adjustment for gender although this association is different in men
and women. The association with city size is not strong, and is comparable
for men and women. On basis of these results it is recommended that men and
women are best studied seperately in future studies of behavioral
differences between donors and non-donors. Stratification of cases and
controls on age and city category should be considered for adequate
representation of relevant (sub)categories.
