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By Dan Gooding and Joshua Rhett Miller
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The percentage of Americans who register as organ donors at state motor vehicle agencies fluctuates widely across the country, data obtained by Newsweek reveals.
Colorado recorded the highest organ donor designation rate nationwide in 2023 — with 66.2 percent of residents affirming their choice when given the opportunity to register their decision at state DMVs, followed by South Dakota and Iowa.
The lowest rates were reported in California, Georgia and Mississippi, according to the most recent available data from Donate Life America, a nonprofit that manages the National Donate Life Registry.
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Due to variability in registry data-cleaning practices regarding removal of deceased individuals from databases, the percentage of residents registered in each state can be misleading. DLA officials instead consider the donor designation rate as a "more accurate" metric, spokeswoman Hilary Kleine told Newsweek.
"This measures the percentage of people that say yes when presented with the registration opportunity at their state DMV in a given year," Kleine said.
The national donor designation rate in 2023 based on state reported data was 47.4 percent, Kleine said, adding that the Virginia-based national nonprofit is currently finalizing 2024 state data.
Some state agencies did not provide complete donor designation rate data for 2023, including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona and Arkansas. Indiana and the District of Columbia, meanwhile, reported rates of 67.6 percent and 51.6 percent, respectively, in 2022, DLA internal figures show.
Donor designation rates from 19 states were not supplied by relevant local agencies in 2023, including the Delaware Department of Transportation and the Michigan Department of State, DLA's data shows.
Texas, for example, does not report its donor designation rate to Donate Life America, according to Chad Carroll, executive director of Donate Life Texas, which manages the state's official organ, eye and tissue donor registry.
"We are currently refining our data collection process with our state Department of Motor Vehicles to more accurately report that number," Carroll told Newsweek in an email Thursday.
Roughly 64 percent of Texans indicate "yes" when asked to register as an organ donor, including a current list of more than 15 million residents, Carroll said. That total number appears to be eclipsed only by California, where more than 19.7 million people are registered, according to Donate Life California's website. California has roughly 8 million more residents than Texas.
The donor designation rate in California stood at 31.3 percent in 2023, but has dipped to 27.75 percent during the first half of this year, Donate Life California officials told Newsweek Thursday.
From California to Texas to Colorado, thousands of people have removed themselves from donor registries following federal scrutiny and in-depth reporting by the New York Times on problems within the nation's organ transplant system.
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The Department of Health and Human Services vowed to overhaul organ procurement and transplant policy late last month following an investigation by the Health Resources and Services Administration that revealed disturbing practices, including instances of where patients "showed signs of life," HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said.
"The organ procurement organizations that coordinate access to transplants will be held accountable," Kennedy said on July 21. "The entire system must be fixed to ensure that every potential donor's life is treated with the sanctity it deserves."
More than 103,000 men, women and children are currently on the national transplant waiting list and roughly 13 people die every day as they await operations, according to the Heath Resources and Services Administration's website.
Roughly 90 percent of U.S. adults support organ donation, but just 60 percent are registered as donors, a 2019 federal survey found.
The overwhelming majority of patients on the nation's waiting list as of September need kidneys, followed by those awaiting a healthy liver or heart.
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