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

Sara Siddiqi; Zoe Ortiz; Stephanie Simard; Juan Li; Kamaya Lawrence; Melissa Redmond; Julianna J Tomlinson; Michael G Schlossmacher; Natalina Salmaso

doi:10.1038/s41531-025-00891-7

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

NPJ Parkinsons Dis. 2025 Mar 7;11(1):45. doi: 10.1038/s41531-025-00891-7.

Authors

Sara Siddiqi^{1

2

3}, Zoe Ortiz¹, Stephanie Simard¹, Juan Li^{3

4}, Kamaya Lawrence¹, Melissa Redmond⁵, Julianna J Tomlinson², Michael G Schlossmacher^{5

6}, Natalina Salmaso^{7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neuroscience, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
² School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
³ Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
⁴ Neuroscience Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, University of Ottawa Brain & Mind Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
⁵ School of Social Work, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
⁶ Division of Neurology, The Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
⁷ Department of Neuroscience, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada. natalina.salmaso@carleton.ca.
⁸ Department of Health Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada. natalina.salmaso@carleton.ca.

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.

Publication types

Review