The Registry Atlas · How we check
How we check our country guides
Each country guide says who can join a stem cell donor registry where you live, and how. Here’s how we find those answers, what our labels mean and how to tell us when something’s wrong.
How we check
We start with each registry’s own pages: who can join, how, what it costs and what happens next.
Where a rule depends on something else, such as a health card, we read the government’s own page too. For the risks of donating, we use published studies of unrelated donors. For which stem cell treatments are approved, we use a government health service or the medicines regulator.
We read each page’s own text, not a summary of it, and note the date we read it.
Every fact on a guide lists its source at the foot of the page, with the source’s own date and the date we last read it.
We read the joining page and the rules again on a schedule, and again in the two days before a guide is published or changed.
We check that each join button still opens the registry’s own page. Those checks are never counted as visits from readers, and we never sign up to test a link.
If we can’t open a page, we say so. A page we couldn’t open is never treated as closed.
What “Checked” means
Three dates appear on every guide.
- Checked
- The date at the top of a guide is the date of the oldest fact the page depends on. If one rule was last read a month ago and the rest last week, the page shows the earlier date.
- Link checked
- The last date we confirmed that the join button opens the registry’s own page.
- Next check due
- The latest date we’ll read the page’s sources again.
What our labels mean
Every place carries one of five labels. A label says what we could check about joining a registry from that place. It says nothing about how much donors are needed there.
- You can join here
A registry signs up people who live in this place, and we’ve read its own current rules.
- Join through a service that covers this place
No registry is based here, but one based somewhere else signs up people who live here, and its own rules say so.
- Joining is limited, paused or just starting
A registry exists, but joining is open only in some ways or places, has paused, or is still being set up.
- No verified way to join yet
We looked and couldn’t confirm a way to join from this place. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
- Still checking
It looks like you can join, but one thing isn’t confirmed, or sources disagree. The page says what we’re checking.
Why we started with Australia
Australia was ready. People who live there join one national registry, Stem Cell Donors Australia, and its rules for joining could be read and checked on its own pages.
We had also gathered more evidence about joining there than anywhere else, so we chose to start with Australia.
That order says nothing about need. It isn’t a ranking, and no guide means its patients need donors more than anyone else’s.
Something wrong or out of date?
Tell us, and we’ll check it
Use our contact form, with the page’s title and what looks wrong. The form doesn’t accept web addresses, so the title is enough.
We check it against the registry’s own pages. When we change something that matters, such as an age limit, who can join or a join link, the page says what changed and when.