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Laurenann7094 t1_j69c68n wrote

>An organ donor would be more likely than average to be a person of color while an organ recipient would be more likely than average to be White.

I don't know where you got this but you are wrong. And you are suggesting it as a template to other redditors! Wow.

Almost 60% of people on the U.S. transplant waiting list are people of color, including Black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Native American patients. However, the number of donors from those communities is much lower than the number from white communities.

Among communities of color, Black American are the largest group in need of organ transplants overall. Data from 2020 shows that Black Americans make up 31.4% of candidates on the kidney transplant waiting list but only 8% of living kidney donors. That's in contrast to white Americans who represent 34.9% of candidates and 71.4% of living donors.

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BlaineTog t1_j69jlzp wrote

First, where are you getting those numbers? I'm not calling them into question, I'm interested to see the full dataset.

Second, the waiting list by itself isn't the best metric to use here. We might expect there to be more BIPOC people on the waiting list if White people are finding ways to skip the line (such as by securing private donations).

But to answer your question, I don't have a source. I was working off the assumption that every racial group needs organ transplants at equal rates, but you're right to point out that that isn't necessarily the case. Perhaps certain groups are predisposed to illnesses that require more transplants, or perhaps other groups receive better preventative healthcare and avoid getting to that point. These sorts of influences are deeply rooted in all levels of society and they can be hard to tease out.

Thank you for pointing that out. I'm upvoting your comment so people can choose whether to leave that point in or not. FWIW, I'm not strictly suggesting people use this, and I certainly don't expect anyone to use it verbatim. I just figured if I went to the trouble of typing this up, other people ought to have a chance to use it as their first draft.

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