Abstract Details

Title Social Determinants of Health in African Americans with Parkinson's DIsease

Topic Movement Disorders

Presentation(s) P1 - Poster Session 1 (12:00 PM-1:00 PM)

Poster/Presentation
Number 3-013

Objective This study investigated potential barriers to specialty care access for African Americans (AA) with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and whether those barriers were associated with PD severity.

Background PD is a neurodegenerative condition for which there is no cure. The literature suggests that prevalence is lower in AA than white patients, but this may be due to inaccurate estimation methods or lack of representation in research. Rush University Medical Center’s Section of Movement Disorders (RUMC) is a tertiary care center for individuals with PD. The proportion of AA with PD in our clinic is far below (~4%) expected given the demographics of the surrounding neighborhoods. A previous investigation showed that these AA patients presented with more advanced PD compared to white patients. Some published studies suggest that social determinants of health (SDOH) factors may account for the lower prevalence in AA with PD.

Design/Methods Time between symptoms onset to initial presentation to RUMC, basic social needs, health literacy, relationship with healthcare provider, and experience of discrimination were assessed. PD motor symptoms were also assessed. Thus far, there are 26 participants, approximately half of which are AA.

Results Results of Mann-Whitney tests were non-significant for age, years of education, and age of PD onset as well as for measures of SDOH. Correlations between MDS-UPDRS Part III and discrimination, social needs, and health literacy were non-significant. Correlation was significant between MDS-UPDRS and healthcare relationship trust ρ= .032.

Conclusions Although the sample size is currently small and thus the analyses are under-powered, the study is ongoing with a target of 50 participants. Future directions include addressing the challenge of servicing PD patients (transportation, reliance on caregiver availability), to increase sample size from RUMC, and to include participants from the county hospital, as the RUMC patient population may not accurately represent the Chicago AA PD population.

Authors/Disclosures
Meagan O. Bailey, MD (Novant Health Neurology) PRESENTER	Dr. Bailey has nothing to disclose.
	No disclosure on file
	No disclosure on file
Sharlet Anderson, PhD (Rush University Medical Center)	Dr. Anderson has nothing to disclose.