ACTRIMS 2022 | Outcome disparities in African American and Hispanic patients with MS

There’s a growing body of research that suggests that there may be differences in outcomes that we see in certain populations. For instance, African Americans and Hispanic/Latino patients may have more disability, may have more walking problems, may have different characteristics on MRI. I think that all of this research focused on outcomes really lends itself to us kind of taking a step back and trying to understand why we see the outcomes that we see. One of the difficulties with understanding the role of social determinants of health, like access to the physician, discrimination and bias within the medical system, how they interact with potential biological differences, is that we have very low enrollment of people of color in our clinical trials for multiple sclerosis.

That’s something that myself and many of my colleagues are actively working on trying to change, thinking about the way we design trials, those who are involved in trials, encouraging people of color to become involved in neuroscience. I think all of those things will help us to better understand why we see the outcomes we see.