Among the many ways racial bias shows up in the American medical system: who receives kidney transplants. (This is true of other organs as well, but we'll only talk about kidneys for now.) Until recently, whites in need of transplants were more likely to receive them than blacks or Hispanics. So in December 2014, officials changed the algorithm that determines who's prioritized for donated kidneys. Now, just about a year later, a new study shows the change worked.
The evidence comes from a paper published last month in theJournal of the American Society of Nephrology. The study's authors, a team of transplant researchers and epidemiologists, examined data on who receives kidneys from cadaver donors. In the year before the algorithm change, blacks and Hispanics who needed kidney transplants were less likely to receive an organ from a deceased donor. Afterwards, transplant rates rose for both blacks and Hispanics, the study found.
[For more of this story, written by Francie Diep, go to http://www.psmag.com/health-an...transplants-race-gap]
Comments (0)