About Us
Nov. 14, 2024
Author: Lisa Lopez Snyder
Brittany Hand ’16 PhD, OTR/L, an associate professor in The Ohio State University School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and health services researcher in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Ohio State College of Medicine, is on a mission to help people with intellectual and developmental disabilities gain equal access to kidney transplants. Her latest research, recently awarded a five-year National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant, aims to take the first steps to make that goal a reality.
“People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are disproportionally more likely to be denied an organ transplant than those without these disabilities,” she says, creating a system of discrimination. Dr. Hand, who also mentors HRS PhD students, and her team documented this health disparity in kidney transplantation, which is the most common solid organ transplant performed in the United States.
“People with developmental disabilities are 54 % less likely to even be evaluated for a kidney transplant.”
While 40 of the 50 states have passed laws prohibiting disability-based discrimination in organ transplantation, federal law and regulatory agency oversight is required to enforce those laws, she says. Using Medicare data from 2013-2021 of individuals with end-stage renal disease, Dr. Hand and her team will review data before and after the laws were enacted to determine the extent to which these laws are making a difference to improve equity for this population.
“We hypothesize that the laws are making a little bit of a difference, but alone are not sufficient to close the equity gap,” she says.
Since the funding period began in August 2024, Dr. Hand and her team have assembled an advisory board that includes people with developmental disabilities or their family members, including those who received transplants or were denied transplants. Among the major partner organizations are the National Down Syndrome Society and the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry.
Currently, Congress is considering passage of a federal bill, the Charlotte Woodward Organ Transplant Discrimination Prevention Act, which would enforce these measures.
The team will also look at other factors, such as social determinants of health that compound with disability discrimination in organ transplant; latter stages of the project will involve a review of transplant centers’ records of stated reasons for denying persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, compared with matched samples of candidates without these disabilities.
For Dr. Hand, whose work has long examined health disparities among persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the research has a particular meaning.
“The issue of improving equity and transparency in organ transplantation is huge right now and aligns with major national initiatives. I feel passionately that people with developmental disabilities deserve equal access to holistic consideration for this life-saving medical care and am proud of the work we are doing to make that a reality.”