Race and ethnicity matter! Moving Parkinson's risk research towards diversity and inclusiveness

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a prevalent neurodegenerative disorder that shows considerable heterogeneity of risk factors however, the degree to which race/ethnicity has been actively pursued in PD risk research is unknown. We examined PD literature from 2000-24 and found that less than half accounted for race/ethnicity and only 4.8% of n = 1142 articles included ethno-racial factors as an integral part of the analysis. This demonstrates that race/ethnicity has been critically understudied in PD and further studies that examine ethno-racial contributions to risk for PD are warranted.

Fig. 1. Few studies published compared ethno-racial variables within their data sets.

A Articles included in targeted literature review after screening and eligibility (n = 1142). B Following screening from a PubMed search, 1142 full texts of articles published between 2000 and 2024 were reviewed. Number of articles in each category describes how ethno-racial information was accounted for in the reviewed articles, where 40.7% of articles accounted for race/ethnicity. Integral analysis indicates comparing PD epidemiology with races/ethnicities as subgroups, with effect modification or interaction. Note: n = 6 articles not listed were categorized as Other, many of these specified collection of ethnicity data, and provided no further details. Table created using Biorender.com.

Fig. 2. Most studies considering race/ethnicity as integral part of analysis were North American, and a similar rate were published across 2000–2024.

A Geographic distribution of studies that incorporated race/ethnicity as an integral part of analysis. B Percentage of studies that include race/ethnicity as an integral component that were published in each 5 year time interval between 2000 and 2024.