Who donates their bodies to science? The combined role of gender and migration status among California whole-body donors

Abstract

The number of human cadavers available for medical research and training, as well as organ transplantation, is limited. Researchers disagree about how to increase the number of whole-body bequeathals, citing a shortage of donations from the one group perceived as most likely to donate from attitudinal survey data -educated white males over 65. This focus on survey data, however, suffers from two main limitations: First, it reveals little about individuals' actual registration or donation behavior. Second, past studies' reliance on average survey measures may have concealed variation within the donor population. To address this limitation, we employ cluster analysis on all whole-body donors' data from the Universities of California at Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Two donor groups emerge from the analyses: One is made of slightly younger, educated, married individuals, an overwhelming portion of whom are U.S.-born and have U.S.-born parents, while the second includes mostly older, separated women with some college education, a relatively higher share of whom are foreign-born and have foreign-born parents. Our results demonstrate the presence of additional donor groups within and beyond the group of educated and elderly white males previously assumed to be most likely to donate. More broadly, our results suggest how the intersectional nature of donors' demographics -in particular, gender and migration status -shapes the configuration of the donor pool, signaling new ways to possibly increase donations.

“Mortui Vivos Docent” or Who Gives His Body to Science? The Analysis of the Personal Questionnaires of Polish Donors in the Conscious Body Donation Program

“…Most of the donors who decided to donate their body to medicine were in their 60s and 70s, which is similar to numerous studies in other countries [ 10 , 11 ], for example: 70.6 years female, 70.2 years male [ 12 ], or 60±15 years for donors in Ireland, 68±13 years for people in New Zealand [ 13 ] or 71.4 years in California, USA [ 14 ]. The gender profile of the investigated population differs from the population gender structure in Poland, having a higher percentage of registered female donors than the percentage of women in the population.…”

Effects of Commemorations and Postdonation Services on Public Willingness to Donate Bodies in China

“…However, this survey contradicted previous studies which found that both married (Bolt et al, ) or unmarried (Boulware et al, ) individuals were more amenable to whole‐body donation. The results of the present study demonstrated that body donation is more likely among separated (divorced and widowed) individuals, which is consistent with some other reports (Fennell and Jones, ; Bolt, ; Asad et al, ). This may suggest that divorced or widowed potential donors are less likely than others to be influenced by their families.…”

“…Among 1,605 respondents, 20.87% were willing to donate, while 79.13% were not willing to donate. Although some studies (Dluzen et al, ; Boulware et al, ; Rokade and Gaikawad, ) have reported gender differences in attitudes toward body donation, the present study demonstrated no significant difference between males' and females' willingness to donate, which is largely in agreement with other studies (Anyanwu and Obikili, ; Cornwall et al, ; Asad et al, ). Other factors, such as age and education, might have affected these results.…”

Attitudes of medical and allied medical students from Serbia toward whole body donation

“…A recent survey carried out at one of the Polish universities established that the majority of body donors (76.36%) were Catholic (BAJOR et al, 2015). It should be borne in mind that a decision on body donation is influenced in a multi-factorial manner and made through the interplay of various determinants, where religion might or might not play a decisive role (BOLT et al, 2011;ASAD, ANTEBY, GARIP, 2014;KONSCHAKE, BRENNER, 2014). More broadly, a recent study suggested that students' broader, metaphysical belief in the existence of the soul (which might not have religious underpinning) is positively correlated with higher level of stress during dissection (MARTYN et al, 2014).…”