Kidney Disease Statistics for the United States

Fast Facts on Kidney Disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects more than 1 in 7 U.S. adults—an estimated 35.5 million Americans.¹ For Americans with diabetes or high blood pressure—the two most common causes of kidney disease—the risk for CKD is even greater. About 1 in 3 people with diabetes and 1 in 5 people with high blood pressure have kidney disease.¹ Other risk factors for developing kidney disease include heart disease and a family history of kidney failure.

Despite the prevalence of kidney disease in the United States, as many as 9 in 10 adults who have CKD are not aware they have the disease.¹ Early-stage kidney disease usually has no symptoms, and many people don’t know they have CKD until it is very advanced. Kidney disease often gets worse over time and may lead to kidney failure and other health problems, such as stroke or heart attack. Approximately 2 in 1,000 Americans are living with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD)—kidney failure that is treated with a kidney transplant or dialysis.²

Learn more about kidney disease from the National Institute on Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). NIDDK spearheads research to improve kidney disease management and treatment. For information about current studies, visit ClinicalTrials.gov.

Key Kidney Disease Statistics

Chronic Kidney Disease

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Chronic Kidney Disease in the United States, 2023 report

• CKD is slightly more common in women (14%) than in men (12%).
• About 20% of non-Hispanic Black adults have CKD.
• Approximately 12% of non-Hispanic White adults have CKD.
• About 14% of non-Hispanic Asian adults have CKD.
• Approximately 14% of Hispanic adults have CKD.
• CKD is most common among people ages 65 or older (34%), followed by people ages 45 to 64 (12%), and people ages 18 to 44 (6%).

End-stage Kidney Disease (ESKD)

According to the United States Renal Data System 2023 Annual Data Report

• More than 808,000 people in the United States are living with ESKD, also known as end-stage renal disease (ESRD), with 68% on dialysis and 32% with a kidney transplant.
• Males are 1.6 times more likely to develop ESKD than females.
• Compared with White people
  • Black people are more than 4 times more likely to develop ESKD.
  • Hispanic people and Native American people are more than twice as likely to develop ESKD.
  • Asian people are 1.6 times more likely to develop ESKD.
• Black people make up about 14% of the total population but account for 30% of the total number of people with ESKD in the United States.
• Black people are more likely to have ESKD caused by high blood pressure, also called hypertension, than White or Hispanic people.
• Since 2001, the number of Hispanic, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and Asian people with kidney failure has more than tripled in each race/ethnicity group.
• Hispanic people are more likely to have ESKD caused by diabetes than White or Black people.
• At the end of 2021, 14.1% of all patients undergoing dialysis performed dialysis at home. The percentage of patients performing home dialysis increased approximately 45% between 2011 and 2021.
• Among patients with ESKD who were initially waitlisted for a kidney transplant in 2016, nearly half (46.3%) received a kidney transplant by the end of 5 years.
  • Children age 17 years or younger were more likely to receive a transplant by 5 years (85.4%) than adults (28.5% to 55.3%, depending on age bracket).
  • Females were more likely to receive a transplant by 5 years (47.9%) than males (45.3%).
  • Black people were more likely to receive a transplant by 5 years (47.7%) than White (47.4%), Hispanic (43.3%), Asian (42.6%), Native American (41.9%), and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (41.0%) people.

According to U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network data

• In 2023, a total of 27,332 kidney transplants were completed in the United States.
• As of November 2024, 90,323 people were on the waiting list for a kidney transplant in the United States.³

Medicare Spending

According to the United States Renal Data System 2023 Annual Data Report

• Medicare spending for beneficiaries with CKD (not including ESKD) ages 66 or older was nearly $77 billion in 2021, representing 24.1% of Medicare spending in this age group.
• In 2021, annual per-person spending attributable to Medicare Parts A, B, and D was more than double for beneficiaries ages 66 or older with CKD ($28,162) compared with those without CKD ($13,604).
• Medicare-related spending for beneficiaries with ESKD totaled $52.3 billion in 2021.

Mortality

Initial effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on mortality among the CKD and ESKD populations are reflected below.

According to the United States Renal Data System 2023 Annual Data Report

• In 2021, the demographic-adjusted mortality rate was more than twice as high among Medicare beneficiaries ages 66 years or older with CKD (101.8 per 1,000 person-years) than among those without CKD (46.3 per 1,000 person-years).
• Adjusted mortality rates among Medicare beneficiaries ages 66 years or older with CKD decreased slightly, from 100.6 per 1,000 person-years in 2020 to 98.5 per 1,000 person-years in 2021. In this demographic group, while adjusted mortality rates declined among Black and White older adults with CKD from 2020 to 2021, adjusted mortality rates increased among Hispanic older adults with CKD during that same time period.
  • Mortality rates among Black older adults declined from 115.2 per 1,000 person-years in 2020 to 105.5 per 1,000 person-years in 2021.
  • Mortality rates among White older adults declined from 100.9 per 1,000 person-years in 2020 to 99.3 per 1,000 person-years in 2021.
  • Mortality rates increased from 98.5 per 1,000 person-years in 2020 to 99.7 per 1,000 person-years in 2021 among Hispanic older adults.
• Adjusted mortality rates in patients with ESKD decreased between 2011 (147.2 per 1,000 person-years) and 2019 (128.5 per 1,000 person-years) before abruptly increasing in 2020 (151.8 per 1,000 person-years) and increasing again in 2021 (153.7 per 1,000 person-years).
  • In patients receiving hemodialysis, adjusted mortality rates increased by 17.0% from 2019 to 2020 and increased marginally by about 0.6% in 2021.
  • In patients receiving peritoneal dialysis, adjusted mortality rates increased by 23.9% from 2019 to 2020 and increased by an additional 3.5% in 2021.
  • In patients with a kidney transplant, adjusted mortality rates increased by 34.0% from 2019 to 2020 and increased by an additional 16.3% in 2021.
• Adjusted mortality rates are significantly lower in patients with a kidney transplant (74.3 per 1,000 person-years) than in patients receiving dialysis (187.7 per 1,000 person-years).

References