Increasing Organ Donor Registrations with Behavioral Interventions: A Field Experiment

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Economics
• Public Health Policy
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Limited understanding of increasing actual organ donor registrations in explicit consent systems.
• Previous interventions (educational programs, mass media) are costly, labor-intensive, and not scalable.
• Need for economical and scalable solutions to boost organ donor registration rates.

Purpose of the Study:

• To test the effectiveness of behaviorally informed promotion interventions and process improvements on organ donor registrations.
• To identify low-cost, scalable marketing solutions for increasing organ donor registrations.
• To explore the mechanisms underlying intervention effectiveness.

Main Methods:

• A field experiment (N = 3,330) was conducted in Ontario, Canada.
• Interventions included targeted materials (information, altruistic motives) and customer service streamlining.
• A key intervention prompted perspective-taking via reciprocal altruism: "If you needed a transplant would you have one?"

Main Results:

• The best-performing intervention significantly increased new organ donor registration rates from 4.1% (control) to 7.4%.
• Targeting customers with relevant information and altruistic appeals at opportune moments increased registrations.
• Streamlining customer service processes also contributed to higher registration rates.

Conclusions:

• Behaviorally informed interventions offer low-cost, scalable solutions for increasing organ donor registrations.
• Prompting perspective-taking through reciprocal altruism is a highly effective strategy.
• Findings have significant implications for public policy and improving societal welfare through increased organ donation.