Who's to Blame? How Recipient Deservingness Influences Attitudes About Access to the Organ Transplants

Objective: The United States continues to experience a severe shortage of organs available for transplant. Do Americans differentiate between who should and should not get an organ transplant based on the extent to which their situation might be attributed to internal or external factors? And how do race and ethnicity affect these attitudes?. Methods: We surveyed 4177 Americans from March 18 to April 18, 2022, to explore this issue. The survey contained a vignette-based experiment that introduced respondents to individuals with four distinct life circumstances. We also relied on racially/ethnically identifiable names. We relied on comparisons of predicted means to assess differences. Results: We found that public attitudes are shaped by assessments of the life circumstances of potential transplant recipients, with important nuances for various subgroups. We generally did not find any differentiation based on the race/ethnicity of the vignette. Conclusion: More work is needed to assess whether and how public attitudes should be included in decisions about transplant allocation.