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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.