A newly released article this month evaluated 1,142 Parkinson’s Disease risk studies published between 2000 and 2024 and found that only 40.7% of these studies considered race or ethnicity, with just 4.8% (55 studies) including race in their analysis. The authors of the study noted that 60% of the data came from North America, while only 13% came from Asia, 9% from Africa, and a mere 2% from Australia/New Zealand, Micronesia, and Polynesia combined.
Out of the fifty-five studies, ten of those studies found that Parkinson’s is more common in white populations than in black populations, two of those studies showed differences when it came to earlier onset and later diagnosis of Parkinson’s in black individuals, and three studies found no link whatsoever between race/ethnicity and Parkinson’s disease rates. Three of the studies in the assessment combined gender and race/ethnicity data and found that Parkinson’s disease was more common in males than females, regardless of race or ethnicity. Also, one study found that black patients had a higher risk of death than white patients, while Hispanic and Asian individuals in the study showed a lower risk of death.
The author points out that some of the studies in their review exclude race and ethnicity because of unavailable data or small sample sizes taken during the study. Acknowledging that this may be due to inadequate access to good healthcare facilities, doctors, and other trained medical personnel, social, environmental, or even the politics that govern certain areas, that may come into play when determining the types of data in these studies.
Opinions
The author states that strategies need to be adopted and updated in how some studies are being carried out because of the importance of including race and ethnicity as part of any study on Parkinson’s Disease.
“Some scientists may be hesitant to consider factors related to race/ethnicity in their investigations, as incorporation would necessitate adapting methodology, research design, and potential recruitment strategies. Indeed, one might argue that past efforts to control errant variables and factors studied have been at the cost of generalizability and real-life representation. Traditionally, scientific research has arguably suffered from a lack of inclusivity across many domains, including sex and gender; for example, of all the Canadian Institute of Health Research-funded grants from 2009 to 2020, fewer than 3% considered sex and/or gender.” This indicates that studies don’t often reflect real-world diversity and only provide a limited sampling of a different demographic of people. Thus, it reduces the scope of their research and foregoes a broad enough spectrum of sample data in their findings about Parkinson’s disease because of the lack of inclusivity and not providing a sufficient amount of data about sex and gender, given the differences between men and women when it comes to their chances of developing Parkinson’s disease.
Conclusion
The article highlights the importance of race and ethnicity in these studies, noting that many organizations already possess strong guidelines regarding best practices related to these factors in health research. It also points out that including gender may present some challenges. The article also acknowledges difficulties in data collection due to geographical differences, especially restrictions encountered in several European countries, such as France, Germany, and Sweden.
“While the goals of these restrictions were likely rooted in anti-racism, the failure to include data which may highlight health disparities by ethnicity or race may in turn, impair our ability to improve health inequities Moreover, there is evidence that studies that directly investigate health disparities are underfunded by national health organizations such as the NIH (National Institutes of Health) As such, we would suggest that the inclusion of race and ethnicity variables is not only at the level of the individual study, but increased support is also needed at higher levels, such as large cohort design and policy making.”
The author also states the absence of available literature when it comes to highlighting race and ethnicity as a possible cause in Parkinson’s disease, the risk may not be due to biological or genetic reasons, but a lack of basic healthcare and an individual’s living conditions that may come into play in different segments of the population around the globe.
The full article can be read here at Nature Partner Journal
Photo Credit: Adobe Firefly for C.Denny
