The first portion of the study will be a large medical electronic data based search and analysis of patients with PD on demographics, socioeconomic status and clinical features of PD patients. Specifically, we will retrospectively identify PD patients on both races from the electronic medical database spanned from 1/1/2006 to 10/31/2017 and compared demographics, socioeconomic status (educations, incomes and insurances), co-morbidities (all categories, including mood, cognition and psychosis), treatment (medications for parkinsonism and major non-motor symptoms, and frequency and locations of healthcare) and survival, and identified factors associated with medication usage and survival.
The second portion was designed to collect more detailed clinical assessments for information not available in the database and blood draws for genetic or candidate gene mutation analysis. Unfortunately, this part of the study could not be carried out due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which began shortly after completion of the first portion of the study. These assessments and analyses would have helped determine if there are significant differences in the clinical and genetic profiles between the African American (or Black) and Caucasian PD patients that account for their differences in clinical features and PD prevalence in these two populations.
