Racial disparities in reaching the renal transplant waitlist: is geography as important as race?

ABSTRACT:

Background

In the United States, African Americans and whites differ in access to the deceased donor renal transplant waitlist. The extent to which racial disparities in waitlisting differ between United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) regions is understudied.

Methods

The US Renal Data System (USRDS) was linked with US census data to examine time from dialysis initiation to waitlisting for whites (n = 188,410) and African Americans (n = 144,335) using Cox proportional hazards across 11 UNOS regions, adjusting for potentially confounding individual, neighborhood, and state characteristics.

Results

Likelihood of waitlisting varies significantly by UNOS region, overall and by race. Additionally, African Americans face significantly lower likelihood of waitlisting compar

SUBMITTER: Saunders MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5088709 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature