Characteristics of those offended by organ procurement alternatives

Abstract

Although Adams, Barnett and Kaserman (ABK), ["Markets For Organs: The Question of Supply," Contemporary Economic Policy, 17:2, 1999] have found that financial incentives have the potential to completely eliminate the organ shortage, 12 percent of the individuals in their survey indicated that they would be offended, and withdraw altogether from the donation process, if such a system were implemented. It is this offended segment of the population that is the focus of this paper. The data for the model come from a stLrvey, independent of ABK's, of 101 randomly selected individuals in a metropolitan area of the southeastern U.S. having a median age of 36 years, closely mirroring the national population [35.5 years, U.S. Statistical Abstract, 2000]. The survey instrument consists of the following questions: 1) possession of a drivers LICENSE, 2) MARRIED, 3) AGE, 4) GENDER, 5) religious affiliation (CATHOLIC, BAPTIST, PROTESTANT other affiliations are the baseline category), 6) CHILDREN and 7) annual income level (15001-30000, 30001-45000, 45000UP the baseline category is 15000 and below). The remaining questions focus on different methods of organ procurement. PREFERRED indicates an individual favoring a law giving organ donors first consideration if the donor at some point needed to be an organ recipient. PRESUMED indicates an individual favors a law that presumes everyone is a donor unless they opt out formally with the appropriate legal authority. FINANCIAL indicates an individual's willingness to donate a family member's organ(s) if offered a financial incentive. The dependent variable OFFENDED is qualitative in nature with a 1 indicating that an individual would withdraw HIS organs altogether from the market in the face of a law allowing financial incentives for cadaveric organ procurement. Using these data, one can estimate the following logit model: