could significantly affect someone’s ability to walk, their ability to feel and also things like their bowel or bladder function. So there tends to be more spinal cord involvement which leads to more disability.
There are also several studies that suggested that African Americans may need to use a cane or a walker or even a wheelchair up to 10 years faster than their Caucasian counterparts and that also there is more disability overall in the African American population.
One of the difficulties with the research that’s been done so far is that all of it is what we call retrospective. That means we take a group of people where they are right now and we look at how they did over time. It really doesn’t factor in other things like access to care, access to insurance, or different difficulties where people may have missed their medicine or been diagnosed later.
One better way to do research or to gather information is to do what we call prospective research, where we start everybody out at ground zero and we see how they did moving forward. Even though we see that African Americans do tend to have more aggressive disease from the research that we’ve seen, we really don’t know the role of access to care and access to insurance and how those social determinants of health really play into the worst outcomes that we see.
Dr. Mitzi Joi Williams is a top neurologist and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Specialist in Atlanta, Georgia. She received her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology from Emory University and her Doctor of Medicine degree from Morehouse School of Medicine. Dr. Williams completed her internship and residency in neurology as well as a Clinical Fellowship in Multiple Sclerosis at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, GA. Dr. Williams has a strong interest in understanding and furthering research in MS in ethnic minority populations. She is a sought-after speaker and presenter and has discussed her research both nationally and internationally at various scientific meetings. She has spearheaded and participated in multiple Steering Committees and Work Groups to further research in underserved populations with MS. She also has recently increased involvement in efforts to increase diversity in clinical research and educate the community about the importance of research participation. Dr. Williams is the author of MS Made Simple: The Essential Guide to Understanding Your Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis. Because of her passion for teaching and advocacy.