Competitions for Kidneys: Using Social Networks Methods to Understand Disparities in Kidney Transplant Receipt

• In Event: 555 - Regular Session. Health Policy

Abstract

Racial and ethnic disparities in kidney transplant receipt are a large health policy problem that deserves sociological attention. We argue that kidney transplant disparity research is limited by atomistic theoretical and methodological models. Instead, we argue that kidney transplantation candidates are non-ignorably embedded in networks where connections between candidates are defined by shared kidney needs. These connections structure individual prospects for obtaining a deceased donor kidney transplant. In this preliminary analysis, we build this network for every 90-day time period between 2003 and 2010, analyze its structure, analyze how it is related to race/ethnicity, and demonstrate that individual positions in the network are strongly associated with the odds of obtaining a kidney transplant in a given 90 day period. We argue that these findings strongly suggest that characteristics associated with race/ethnicity differentially sort individuals into structural positions in the kidney transplantation allocation system and help to explain racial and ethnic disparities in kidney transplantation outcomes.

Authors

• Jonathan Daw, University of Colorado-Boulder

• Jacob E. Cheadle, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

• Jeffrey A. Smith, Duke University