A majority of Americans cannot donate their kidney even if they wanted to as they do not qualify because of preventive health or socio-economic conditions, reveals a new study.
The research "A Population-Based Study of the U.S. Population Shows the Majority of Persons Cannot Donate due to Preventable Diseases and Socio-Economic Conditions" was presented on Nov. 14 at the ASN Kidney Week in Philadelphia.
The study is led by nephrologist Dr. Anthony Bleyer of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and sheds light on the fact that nearly 75 percent of the U.S. population is ineligible to donate. The team studied samples of 7,000 Americans aged between 21 to 55 years via the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
The researchers observed a representative sample to ascertain the number of individuals who were incapable of being kidney donors as they suffered from health conditions that would prevent them from donating the organ. They discovered that nearly 55 percent of American adults were ineligible owing to "preventable" health conditions, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and extreme alcohol consumption.
The team also studied the population falling under the poverty line. These individuals would be incapable of donating their kidney because of the financial consequences of staying away from their jobs at the time of recovery. In the U.S., kidney donors are not entitled to compensation for work hours lost.
Socio-economic factors play a pivotal role in kidney donations, the researchers discovered. About 60 percent of Americans who have an annual income of $35,000 are unable to donate because of their medical condition. By comparison, 49 percent of people who earn more than $100,000 per year also could not donate owing to underlying health complications.
"The majority of individuals in the U.S. cannot donate, and this is due to preventable health problems in many cases," notes Dr. Bleyer. "Lower-income people need transplants more commonly, but individuals from these economic strata are less likely to donate because of more health problems, finances and immigration status."
Nearly 68.5 percent of non-U.S. citizens were barred from donating kidneys as they did not fit the immigration criteria. Alarmingly, only a minor chunk of patients -- 6 percent -- receive a living-donor transplant, Dr. Bleyer says.
However, this is not because Americans are not compassionate or generous but because they do not have enough money to sustain the expenses or are ineligible because of medical issues.
To counter these hurdles faced by prospective donors, measures to provide compensation for the lower-income donors need to be in place. Moreover, improving the health of the U.S. population and tackling immigration issues would be a step in this direction.
"I think the take-home message is, as a population, the healthier we are, the better we would be able to deal with many health problems, and the more donors there would be," says Dr. Bleyer.
