Purpose: Since the 1990s, a patient’s likelihood of receiving a kidney transplant has highly depended on where a patient resides around the United States. In 1998, the Department of Health and Human Services’ “Final Rule” mandated the organ allocation must be geographically equitable. Since then, geographic equity in transplantation has long been debated with no cohesive answer to the question: What is geographic equity in kidney transplantation?

Methods: We would like to learn the personal perspective of American Transplant Congress attendees on this issue through an interactive survey. We will present participants with equity criteria currently debated in the transplant community: transplantation rates, waitlist mortality rates, waiting times to transplantation, dialysis times at transplantation, and transplanted kidney quality. We will provide a main supporting statement as to why each criterion is considered an important metric of geographic equity as well as the current degree by which each criterion currently ranges across Donor Service Areas (DSAs). Participants will be asked provide their opinion as to the importance of each equity criteria relative to the others. No personal information will be collected from participants.

Results and Conclusions: Without defining what geographic equity in kidney transplantation means within the transplant community, no improvements to allocation policy can be made to rectify the problem. We hope that this survey provides some clarity to this important issue, and may open the lines for thoughtful discussions with conference attendees.

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