INTRODUCTION

The Partnership for Organ Donation contracted with The Gallup 
Organization to conduct a national telephone survey of 400 U.S. 
adults regarding attitudes toward and beliefs about organ donation. 
In order to provide adequate subsamples of Hispanics and blacks, The 
Partnership contracted for an additional 200 surveys of each 
minority.

As part of the overall project, the Partnership For Organ Donation 
collaborated with the Harvard School of Public Health and offered 
regional organ procurement organizations (OPO's) the opportunity to 
purchase additional interviews within the counties serviced by each 
OPO. Seventeen OPO's chose to participate.

The survey results have been analyzed separately for each region. In 
addition, the results for each regional OPO have been 
proportionately weighted into the initial 800 national surveys (400 
random; 400 minority) to provide an overall national sample of 6,127 
interviews. The weighting procedures employed create a final data 
set which produces results representative of the U.S. adult 
population. A summary of the methodology used is included in 
Appendix B of this report. A complete description of the methodology 
and a copy of the actual survey instrument are included in the 
Technical Appendix, available upon request from The Partnership for 
Organ Donation.

Interpretation of Results

Throughout this report, references are made to differences between 
categories within groups, e.g. older vs. younger respondents. The 
reader is cautioned to view these analyses as very broad and 
descriptive in nature. A number of sociodemographic variables may 
interact to produce attitudes toward organ donation. For example, 
several questions produced responses which appear to differ across 
racial/ethnic groups. However, a demographic analysis reveals 
systematic differences among racial/ethnic groups on key demographic 
variables, especially education. Education is a demographic variable 
which positively correlated with likelihood to donate organs. 
Conclusions that racial or ethnic status alone is a determinant of 
attitudes and behaviors within this dataset would be erroneous.

In interpreting survey results, it should also be borne in mind that 
all sample surveys are subject to sampling error, that is, the 
extent to which the results may differ from what would be obtained 
if the entire target population had been interviewed. The size of 
such sample errors depends largely on the number of interviews 
completed. For a sample of 6,127, the maximum estimated sampling 
error for percentages is +1.3%. This may be interpreted as 
indicating the range within which the results of repeated sampling 
in the same time period could be expected to vary, 95% of the time, 
assuming the same sampling procedure, the same interviewers, the 
same field period and the same questionnaire.

Introduction 								1

Last modified: 11 May 2000