Disproportionate impact of mass incarceration affects health disparities, transplantation
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
ORLANDO — Among self-identified Black and mixed-race Americans with end-stage kidney disease, 39% reported having at least one family member in prison who could have potentially donated a kidney, according to a presenter at ASN Kidney Week.
“Identifying how systemic racism affects health disparities is the first step to ensure health equity and kidney transplantation,” Avrum Gillespie, MD, from Lewis Katz School of Medicine in Philadelphia, told Healio.
In a cross-sectional interviewer-administered social network survey of prevalent hemodialysis patients, researchers explored the disproportionate impact of mass incarceration on racial disparities in living kidney donor transplantation. Researchers interviewed 23 patients with ESKD who self-identified as Black and mixed race (65% were women; 75% had a household income of less than $40,000). All patients were eligible to receive a kidney transplant.
Interviewers asked patients, “Have any members of your immediate family, not including yourself, ever been held in jail or prison for 1 night or longer?” in addition to how many family members were affected by incarceration. Patients were also asked how many family members affected by incarceration could have possibly donated a kidney.
Overall, 52% of patients reported having a family member incarcerated, most of which had two to three family members incarcerated. Additionally, patients reported that more than 75% of family members impacted by incarceration could have donated a kidney to them.
“The conclusion is that 39% of the participants in this living donor intervention had at least one family member who could have potentially donated if they were not incarcerated,” Gillespie said. He added, “We should be aware of and advocate for criminal justice to improve the health of Americans.”
Collapse
Gillespie A, et al. FR-PO884. Presented at: ASN Kidney Week; Nov. 3-6, 2022; Orlando (hybrid meeting).
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts