The Effect of Race and Income on Living Kidney Donation in the United States

Studies of racial disparities in access to living donor kidney transplantation focus mainly on patient factors, whereas donor factors remain largely unexamined. Here, data from the US Census Bureau were combined with data on all African-American and white living kidney donors in the United States who were registered in the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) between 1998 and 2010 (N=57,896) to examine the associations between living kidney donation (LKD) and donor median household income and race. The relative incidence of LKD was determined in zip code quintiles ranked by median household income after adjustment for age, sex, ESRD rate, and geography. The incidence of LKD was greater in higher-income quintiles in both African-American and white populations. Notably, the total incidence of LKD was higher in the African-American population than in the white population (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.20; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.17 to 1.24]), but ratios varied by income. The incidence of LKD was lower in the African-American population than in the white population in the lowest income quintile (IRR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.78 to 0.90), but higher in the African-American population in the three highest income quintiles, with IRRs of 1.31 (95% CI, 1.22 to 1.41) in Q3, 1.50 (95% CI, 1.39 to 1.62) in Q4, and 1.87 (95% CI, 1.73 to 2.02) in Q5. Thus, these data suggest that racial disparities in access to living donor transplantation are likely due to socioeconomic factors rather than cultural differences in the acceptance of LKD.