The Center for RISC Releases New Report on Living Kidney Donation

About 37 million Americans have kidney disease, and over 800,000 live with kidney failure. At thisadvanced stage, patients either receive a kidney transplant or remain on dialysis, an expensive andoften debilitating treatment, for the rest of their lives. Of the more than 90,000 Americans placedon the kidney transplant waitlist in 2022, only about one in four received a kidney and only about20% of those kidneys came from living donors, even though living donation provides significantlybetter health outcomes than deceased donation. This critical shortage of kidneys persists in spiteof the fact that thousands of people are willing to donate one of their kidneys in order to save thelife of a loved one or a stranger. RISC estimates that less than 10 percent of these prospectivedonors actually complete the journey to surgery.

The below report summarizes the findings of a 10-week research sprint conducted by RISC with the goals of (1) providing a new, clearer picture of the national living kidney donation system, including doctors, hospital administrators, nonprofit advocates, donors, and recipients, (2) identifying the primary barriers faced by living donor candidates, and (3) identifying opportunities for reforms to ease these barriers. While this research focused on kidney donation, many of the same insights apply to living liver donation.

Please contact rrorty@uchicago.edu with media inquiries.

Here is the report.

Here is a short brief summarizing the results of our research.