According to a study scheduled to be published in the July issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN), black patients face a higher risk of dying in the early stages of chronic kidney disease (CKD) than whites. The study’s results indicate that racial differences in the death rates of chronic kidney disease patients depend more on sociological factors than on biological ones. Poverty and lack of education and medical insurance, in particular, may contribute to the high death rates among black individuals. However, among patients with late-stage chronic kidney disease, the trend is reversed and black individuals have a survival advantage over whites.