TY - JOUR
T1 - Racial disparities in reaching the renal transplant waitlist
T2 - Is geography as important as race?
AU - Saunders, Milda R.
AU - Lee, Haena
AU - Alexander, G. Caleb
AU - Tak, Hyo Jung
AU - Thistlethwaite, J. Richard
AU - Ross, Lainie Friedman
PY - 2015/6/1
Y1 - 2015/6/1
N2 - 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 compared to whites in all but two regions (1 and 6). Overall, 39% of African Americans with ESRD reside in Regions 3 and 4 - regions with a large racial disparity and where African Americans comprise a large proportion of the ESRD population. In these regions, the African American-white disparity is an important contributor to their overall regional disparity. Conclusions: Race remains an important factor in time to transplant waitlist in the United States. Race contributes to overall regional disparities; however, the importance of race varies by UNOS region.
AB - 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 compared to whites in all but two regions (1 and 6). Overall, 39% of African Americans with ESRD reside in Regions 3 and 4 - regions with a large racial disparity and where African Americans comprise a large proportion of the ESRD population. In these regions, the African American-white disparity is an important contributor to their overall regional disparity. Conclusions: Race remains an important factor in time to transplant waitlist in the United States. Race contributes to overall regional disparities; however, the importance of race varies by UNOS region.
KW - Geographic factors
KW - Healthcare disparity
KW - Kidney transplant
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U2 - 10.1111/ctr.12547
DO - 10.1111/ctr.12547
M3 - Article
C2 - 25818547
AN - SCOPUS:84930824081
VL - 29
SP - 531
EP - 538
JO - Clinical Transplantation
JF - Clinical Transplantation
SN - 0902-0063
IS - 6
ER -