Effect of education on racial disparities in access to kidney transplantation

Goldfarb‐Rumyantzev AS, Sandhu GS, Baird B, Barenbaum A, Yoon JH, Dimitri N, Koford JK, Shihab F. Effect of education on racial disparities in access to kidney transplantation. Clin Transplant 2012: 26: 74–81. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S. : Higher education level might result in reduced disparities in access to renal transplantation. We analyzed two outcomes: (i) being placed on the waiting list or transplanted without listing and (ii) transplantation in patients who were placed on the waiting list. We identified 3224 adult patients with end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) in United States Renal Data System with education information available (mean age of ESRD onset of 57.1 ± 16.2 yr old, 54.3% men, 64.2% white, and 50.4% diabetics). Compared to whites, fewer African Americans graduated from college (10% vs. 16.7%) and a higher percentage never graduated from the high school (38.6% vs. 30.8%). African American race was associated with reduced access to transplantation (hazard ratio [HR] 0.70, p