@article{ref1,
title="Click it or give it: Increased seat belt law enforcement and organ donation",
journal="Health economics",
year="2020",
author="Brewer, Ben",
volume="ePub",
number="ePub",
pages="ePub-ePub",
abstract="Laws mandating that individuals wear a seat belt have the presumed goal of reducing motor vehicle accident fatalities, but the prevailing view is that they may reduce the number of organs available. I provide a conceptual model identifying mechanisms whereby the law could either increase or decrease organ donation. Exploiting variation across states and time in the adoption of primary seat belt enforcement, I investigate these mechanisms and estimate the effect of the law on the supply of organs. The law increases seat belt usage and decreases motor vehicle accident fatalities, which translates to a sizeable reduction in the number of motor vehicle accident-based organ donors. In contrast, the law is not associated with changes in the number of organ donors from nonmotor vehicle accident-based sources and is robust to controlling for hospital-specific effects. The effects are concentrated within organs expected to be most negatively impacted by the seat belt. Although primary enforcement represents a net-gain to society in terms of lives saved, the negative impact on organ donation suggests further emphasis be placed on policies aimed at increasing the availability of organs.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1057-9230",
doi="10.1002/hec.4140",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hec.4140"
}