A multi-faceted approach to sex and gender equity in solid organ transplantation: The Women in Transplantation Initiative of The Transplantation Society.

The advancement of women's careers in transplantation continues to be challenging. Academic careers in both basic and clinical disciplines in transplantation, such as surgery and management of end organ failure in medical specialties, have been underrepresented by diverse genders and ethnicities. Over the last decade, the Women in Transplantation Initiative (WIT) has solidified to becoming an internationally recognized organization with activities focused on diversity and inclusion in terms of the sexes. The WIT organization is divided into 3 pillars that address career advancement and networking (Pillar 1), scientific investigation and presentations on sex and gender in transplantation (Pillar 2) and investigating and facilitating equitable access to transplantation for women throughout the world (Pillar 3). By taking this multipronged approach of collaborating across continents, leveraging virtual platforms for information dissemination and discussion, and providing financial support for research, WIT has become a highly visible grass roots organization that aims to improve the experience of women as transplant professionals as well as transplant donors and recipients.

From pandemic response to portable population health: A formative evaluation of the Detroit mobile health unit program.

This article describes our experience developing a novel mobile health unit (MHU) program in the Detroit, Michigan, metropolitan area. Our main objectives were to improve healthcare accessibility, quality and equity in our community during the novel coronavirus pandemic. While initially focused on SARS-CoV-2 testing, our program quickly evolved to include preventive health services. The MHU program began as a location-based SARS-CoV-2 testing strategy coordinated with local and state public health agencies. Community needs motivated further program expansion to include additional preventive healthcare and social services. MHU deployment was targeted to disease "hotspots" based on publicly available SARS-CoV-2 testing data and community-level information about social vulnerability. This formative evaluation explores whether our MHU deployment strategy enabled us to reach patients from communities with heightened social vulnerability as intended. From 3/20/20-3/24/21, the Detroit MHU program reached a total of 32,523 people. The proportion of patients who resided in communities with top quartile Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Social Vulnerability Index rankings increased from 25% during location-based "drive-through" SARS-CoV-2 testing (3/20/20-4/13/20) to 27% after pivoting to a mobile platform (4/13/20-to-8/31/20; p = 0.01). The adoption of a data-driven deployment strategy resulted in further improvement; 41% of the patients who sought MHU services from 9/1/20-to-3/24/21 lived in vulnerable communities (Cochrane Armitage test for trend, p<0.001). Since 10/1/21, 1,837 people received social service referrals and, as of 3/15/21, 4,603 were administered at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Our MHU program demonstrates the capacity to provide needed healthcare and social services to difficult-to-reach populations from areas with heightened social vulnerability. This model can be expanded to meet emerging pandemic needs, but it is also uniquely capable of improving health equity by addressing longstanding gaps in primary care and social services in vulnerable communities.

Sex and Gender Considerations in Transplant Research: A Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: In response to the promotion of sex and gender integration in health-related research, we conducted a scoping review evaluating to what extent sex and gender were considered in the transplantation literature. METHODS: We searched Medline and Embase for manuscripts published between January 1946 and October 2016. Two reviewers independently selected manuscripts describing clinical research on stem cells, tissues, or solid organ transplantation with ≥20 participants, which mentioned "sex" and/or "gender" in the title or abstract. For each eligible manuscript, 2 of 5 reviewers extracted data on study design, population (transplant candidates, recipients, donors), transplant type, and study outcomes. We evaluated whether the terms "sex" and "gender" were applied according to their correct definitions and how these variables were handled at the level of study design and analysis. RESULTS: Of 7565 search results, 2107 manuscripts met the inclusion criteria. Sex and gender were applied interchangeably in more than half of the studies (57.5%). Rarely were sex or gender, when applied correctly, considered in the primary study question (13.3% and 25.0%, respectively). The majority of the studies considered these variables as confounders (74.6% for sex and 68.2% for gender), and a minority considered them as effect measure modifiers (2.8% for sex and 5.0% for gender). CONCLUSIONS: Despite a growing awareness of the need to integrate sex and gender in health research, education is required to ensure accurate and meaningful consideration of these concepts. We outline strategies for integrating sex and gender in allotransplantation and donation research during study design and analysis.

Equally Interchangeable? How Sex and Gender Affect Transplantation.

Organ transplantation as an option to overcome end-stage diseases is common in countries with advanced healthcare systems and is increasingly provided in emerging and developing countries. A review of the literature points to sex- and gender-based inequity in the field with differences reported at each step of the transplant process, including access to a transplantation waiting list, access to transplantation once waitlisted, as well as outcome after transplantation. In this review, we summarize the data regarding sex- and gender-based disparity in adult and pediatric kidney, liver, lung, heart, and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and argue that there are not only biological but also psychological and socioeconomic issues that contribute to disparity in the outcome, as well as an inequitable access to transplantation for women and girls. Because the demand for organs has always exceeded the supply, the transplant community has long recognized the need to ensure equity and efficiency of the organ allocation system. In the spirit of equity and equality, the authors call for recognition of these inequities and the development of policies that have the potential to ensure that girls and women have equitable access to transplantation.

Clinical research in pediatric nephrology: challenges, and strategies to address them.

There are many obstacles to conducting meaningful clinical research studies in children with kidney disease. This review describes some of the challenges facing clinical investigators in pediatric nephrology, and proposes strategies to overcome them. Four broad categories of challenges are considered: inadequate power, funding issues, ethical issues and practical barriers. Power is influenced not just by sample size, but also by population heterogeneity and the outcome chosen; these issues are discussed in detail. Ethical issues and practical barriers of particular relevance to pediatric studies are considered. Examples of successful multicenter studies are provided. In addition, some of the strengths and limitations of existing registry data are highlighted.

Balancing organ quality, HLA-matching, and waiting times: impact of a pediatric priority allocation policy for deceased donor kidneys in Quebec.

Deceased donor kidney allocation policy must balance the desire for high-quality organs, good human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matching, and minimal waiting times. We describe a 10-fold reduction in waiting times and an improvement in nonimmunologic indices of organ quality for child recipients after a change in organ allocation policy in Quebec, Canada. The new policy gives first priority to children (<18 yr) irrespective of HLA matching or waiting time. HLA matching after the policy change was predictably much worse. This study highlights the trade-offs that must be considered both in setting allocation policy and in decisions for individual recipients. We also consider potential unintended negative effects of such a policy change.

Nutrition in children with kidney disease: pitfalls of popular assessment methods.

Children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are considered at high risk for protein-energy malnutrition. Clinical practice guidelines generally recommend an evaluation of numerous nutritional parameters to give a complete and accurate picture of nutritional status. This review summarizes the potential limitations of commonly used methods of nutritional assessmentin the setting of CKD. Unrecognized fluid overload and inappropriate normalization of body composition measures are the most important factors leading to misinterpretation of the nutritional assessment in CKD. The importance of expressing body composition measures relative to height or height-age in a population in whom short stature and pubertal delay are highly prevalent is emphasized. The limitations of growth as a marker for nutritional status are also addressed. In addition, the prevailing belief that children with CKD are at high risk for malnutrition is challenged.