# Using behavioral economics to reduce the discard rate of viable kidneys: Validating new methods to identify factors that influence the acceptance of deceased-donor kidneys

> **NIH NIH R21** · ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY-TEMPE CAMPUS · 2021 · $258,183

## Abstract

Project Summary
Viable kidneys from deceased donors are being discarded while the waitlist of candidates who
could use them continues to grow. Though the quality of the offered kidney contributes to the
acceptance rate, there exists a large variance in clinicians' decisions. An underlying barrier to
improving the allocation and acceptance of deceased-donor kidneys is a lack of a fundamental
understanding as to why the refusal rate for similar kidneys is high for some transplant centers,
but not others. The premise for our work is that the unexplained heterogeneity in acceptance
rates is caused by idiosyncratic preferences and behavioral biases in clinician's decision-
making. Although many preferences and biases have been hypothesized to affect clinician's
decisions, researchers lack a validated instrument to measure them. We will pilot and validate a
platform that will allow us to estimate the influence of a wide range preferences and behavioral
biases on acceptance rates. To validate our platform, we will test for correlations between
clinicians' risk preferences elicited in a simulated environment to risk preferences from
retrospective acceptance behavior in practice.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10196080
- **Project number:** 1R21DK128773-01
- **Recipient organization:** ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY-TEMPE CAMPUS
- **Principal Investigator:** Ellen P Green
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $258,183
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-06-23 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10196080

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10196080, Using behavioral economics to reduce the discard rate of viable kidneys: Validating new methods to identify factors that influence the acceptance of deceased-donor kidneys (1R21DK128773-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10196080. Licensed CC0.

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