TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2020//
TI  - Click it or give it: Increased seat belt law enforcement and organ donation
JO  - Health economics
A1  - Brewer, Ben
SP  - ePub
EP  - ePub
VL  - ePub
IS  - ePub
N2  - 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 1057-9230
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hec.4140
ID  - ref1
ER  -