The U.S. States Leading in Organ Donations

Mapped: The U.S. States Leading in Organ Donations

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Every day, dozens of Americans receive life-saving transplants, but where do those donated organs come from?

This visualization highlights how rates of organ donations vary widely across the U.S. and which states are leading the charge.

Data for is sourced from Organ Procurement & Transplantation Network and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Organ donations assigned to a state based on donor residence, counted as people who made at least one organ donation. Rate calculations are rounded.

Organ Donations by U.S. State, Ranked

West Virginia ranks first with 10.1 donations per 100,000 people, despite ranking 36th in overall donations.

Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Indiana follow closely, both also at nearly 10 donations per 100,000 residents.

269 organ donations for 2024 not assigned to a state due to missing donor residence.

Donor Registration Rates

To add to the discussion, we can cross referencing this data with registration rates.

Donor registration rates measure the percentage of eligible population that said yes when presented with registration opportunity at their state DMV in a given year. As a result, figures are missing for multiple states due to lack of corroborating DMV data. Source: Donate Life America, via Newsweek.

Generally speaking, the establishment of state organ donor registries is associated with a higher supply of deceased donors.

However, the 2023–2024 data specifically doesn’t have much to say linking the two.

This suggests that multiple factors influence organ donation outcomes beyond just having willing donors.

Here are all the factors not accounted for in both datasets.

• Medical demand variations: States may have different rates of organ failure and transplant needs based on population health profiles.
• Population demographics: Age structures, comorbidity rates, and eligibility factors that affect both donor suitability and transplant candidacy.
• Medical complexity: Varying rates of conditions that make donors medically unsuitable despite registration willingness.
• Family consent patterns: Cultural, religious, or regional attitudes toward donation that influence family decision-making regardless of individual registration.
• Hospital infrastructure quality: Variation in medical centers’ capacity to identify potential donors, maintain organ viability, and coordinate procurement.
• Healthcare system efficiency: Differences in protocols for brain death declaration, family counseling, and donor management.
• Geographic logistics: Distance to transplant centers, transportation infrastructure, and organ preservation capabilities affecting successful procurement.
• State policy frameworks: Legal requirements, hospital mandates, and organ procurement organization structures that vary by jurisdiction.
• Economic factors: Insurance coverage patterns, healthcare access, and socioeconomic factors affecting both donor identification and recipient eligibility.

Deceased Organ Donors Are Critical to Transplants

Across the board, about 60-70% of donations in 2024 came from deceased donors.

Advances in preservation technology have extended the viable window for organs retrieved post-mortem, making it easier to match them with recipients in distant states.

Meanwhile, living donations—kidneys or partial livers—remain steady but limited by stricter medical criteria and donor risk.

Policymakers argue that mandated consent or “opt-out” systems could elevate overall availability, but such measures remain politically contentious in many jurisdictions.

For reference, 13 Americans die every day, waiting for a transplant .

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• Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-u-s-states-leading-in-organ-donations/