Black people are not properly diagnosed and treated for Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease is underdiagnosed in black people, and those that are diagnosed often go untreated.

Following choice of 4 hospital systems to take part in the March 2024 expansion of the Black and African American Connections to Parkinson’s Disease program, significant progress has been made in addressing the underdiagnosis of Black people with Parkinson’s disease. This initiative highlights the urgent must recruit more Black participants to early treatment programs.

According to NBC News, David Leventhal, director of the Dance with PD program at Mark Morris Dance Group, one among the biggest exercise programs within the United States, noticed a scarcity of black participants in program.

“We’re always asking, ‘Who’s not in the room, and why aren’t they in the room?’” Leventhal told the outlet. “With Parkinson’s, movement is the medicine. So if you don’t know how to engage communities in movement, it’s basically like withholding medication. If it were a pill, there would be chaos.”

In the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, exercise can decelerate symptoms by stimulating neurons within the brain, which causes the production of dopamine. According to a study published within the National Library of Medicine, exercise has been shown to potentially groundbreaking treatment for Parkinson’s disease within the early stages.

Black people are generally less more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and after they are, they have an inclination to develop the disease at a later stage than white Americans.

According to Camilla Kilbane, MD, director of the Movement Disorders and Parkinson’s Disease Center, medical director of the Deep Brain Stimulation Program and director of the Movement Disorders Program at University Hospitals Institute, “most Parkinson’s disease research to date has focused on a large white and caucasian preponderance, with men being overrepresented compared with women.”

Kilbane continued, “Because of potential data collection bias, traditional thinking has been that the risk of Parkinson’s disease was lower in blacks and African Americans; however, this may not be true. The reality is that this population is too often underdiagnosed or diagnosed at a later stage of the disease.”

According to the Parkinson’s Foundation, in 2023 PD GENERation Announced that Morehouse School of Medicine will turn into the primary HBCU university to turn into a PD GENEration research center; PD GENEration is the Parkinson’s Foundation’s global genetics initiative.

According to Amasi Kumeh, director of research partnerships on the Parkinson’s Foundation, the initiative helps meet an urgent need.

“PD GENEration has built a strong relationship with the community through engagement and programs,” Kumeh told the Parkinson’s Foundation. “We’ve become a gateway to research, helping recruit diverse participants to clinical trials and providing information about the process.”