Race and End-Stage Renal Disease

Experienced nephrologists have long suspected that end-stage renal disease (ESRD) develops more frequently in blacks than in whites in this country, but it was not until 1977 that this suspicion was given epidemiologic support.1 Studying the rate at which new patients with ESRD entered chronic dialysis or renal transplantation programs in a seven-county area of southeastern Michigan, Easterling found that the overall rate was 3.8 times higher in blacks than in whites.1 Subsequent reports have reinforced the idea that blacks are more likely to acquire ESRD by showing that they constitute a disproportionately high percentage of the ESRD population — . . .