March is Blood Clot Awareness Month (BCAM), which provides a crucial opportunity to share life-saving information about blood clots on a larger and more far-reaching scale.
Blood clots affect as many as 900,000 Americans each year. And complications from blood clots kill one person every six minutes in the United States. During BCAM, we asked the blood clot community to help us fight back against deadly blood clots.
Here are some of the highlights and unprecedented accomplishments that YOU made possible:
In honor of the 100,000 lives lost each year to preventable blood clots, our goals for Blood Clot Awareness Month (BCAM) were to raise $100,000 to support programs that increase public awareness and offer education and support to blood clot patients, and to reach 100,000 people with life-saving information about blood clots. We’re thrilled to announce that we exceeded these goals and then some, thanks to the support from this community.
Together, we raised a total of $110,582 and reached a record-breaking 2.31 million people with critical information about blood clots through our website and social media alone!
Participation and engagement levels were at an all-time high this year for our 100,000 Reasons Challenge, with 313 people registered and nearly 25,000 miles logged during the month.
Thanks to your generosity, we received an incredible 1,120 donations during March, and saw an increase of nearly 2,000 new email subscribers and social media followers.
It was an unprecedented month for advocacy as well. For the first time, the National Blood Clot Alliance (NBCA) was selected to appear before the U.S. House of Representatives Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee to testify about the critical need for blood clot awareness and education funding.
Katie Hoff, Stop the Clot® Ambassador and 3x Olympic medalist, urged Congress to allocate $5 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Blood Disorders to improve blood clot awareness and education.
In another first, NBCA organized an in-person day of advocacy on Capitol Hill in which patients, caregivers, patient advocates, and health care providers from across the country met with more than 70 Congressional offices, urging them to support our appropriations request to secure $5 million in federal blood clot awareness and education funding.
And, thanks to our collective voice, a resolution recognizing March as Deep Vein Thrombosis and Pulmonary Embolism Awareness Month passed with unanimous support in the House and Senate.
It was a record-breaking year for awareness and education events during BCAM, too. Some of these included:
- A hybrid training on venous thromboembolism (VTE) at Wellstar Health System, the largest healthcare system in Georgia;
- A webinar on pediatric VTE in partnership with the CDC;
- A webinar on blood clots and cancer in partnership with SHARE Cancer Support;
- A virtual lunch-and-learn with employees of PECO in Philadelphia;
- Grassroots awareness events in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Missouri
Finally, we had the most media coverage for BCAM in 2023 than any other year. Our organization and blood clot information was covered by ABC News and Today.com, reaching millions of people. Local TV news stations in New York City; St. Louis, Missouri; and Davenport, Iowa covered stories on blood clots that included interviews with NBCA Board members and volunteers, as did publications in Illinois and Ohio.
What a month indeed! Whether you shared, liked, subscribed, donated, volunteered, or helped spread the word about blood clots in some way – THANK YOU!
Remember, Blood Clot Awareness should be spread 365 days of the year, not just during BCAM, so keep it up blood clot community! Let’s keep working together to empower our friends, neighbors, colleagues, and families to help save lives and #stoptheclot.
