When Dr. Luis G. Manrique-Trujillo, MD, a neurologist at Medstar Georgetown University Hospital, noticed he was treating surprisingly few Hispanic/Latinx patients for multiple sclerosis (MS), he wondered why.
Was it because MS is less prevalent in Hispanic populations, or because Hispanic people experience cultural and social obstacles that make them less likely to engage with the healthcare system?
The research that he and fellow MedStar Georgetown physician Dr. Rami Al-Hader, MD, are conducting into this issue has been awarded funding from the second annual “I’M IN” EMD Serono Neurodisparity Fellowship Initiative. This first-of-its-kind initiative helps fund pioneering research studies and intervention strategies designed to reduce disparities in neurologic care for MS patients, thereby advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in healthcare.
So far, one of Dr. Manrique-Trujillo and Dr. Al-Hader’s most significant findings is that 3 in 4 Hispanic/Latinx patients interviewed turned out to be misclassified as other ethnicities in their digital medical records.
"This large discrepancy could be impacting our understanding of prevalence, prognosis, and outcomes in minorities with MS,” says Dr. Manrique-Trujilo. “It makes it difficult to accurately evaluate their experience if they’re not being counted correctly. Improvement in data collection is necessary because reliable demographic information is crucial to determine quality of care and health outcomes.”
MedStar Georgetown’s project — which also received funding from EMD Serono’s initial I’M IN fellowships — will be completed in several stages, including:
● Conducting a population health study of the MS population in the Washington, D.C. metro area
● Reaching out to D.C.’s Hispanic/Latinx population to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of MS, as well as potential treatments available
● Implementing interventions to close the gap in healthcare access for this population
● Collecting data and analyzing outcomes to produce a conference presentation and peer-reviewed paper based on the project results, which will provide a road map for national replication
WHY NEURODISPARITY MATTERS
Although major advancements in neurological care were made in recent decades, a groundbreaking 2017 report found improvements in reduced mortality and decreased disability “have not benefitted all populations equally.” Instead, evidence indicates “barriers to care fall along racial and ethnic lines, with persons from minority groups frequently having lower rates of evaluation, diagnosis, and intervention, and consequently experiencing worse neurologic outcomes than their white counterparts.”
The “I’M IN” Neurodisparity Fellowship initiative is a proactive response to the serious problem of broad disparity in neurological care among differing demographics within the healthcare system. In its request for proposals for the 2023 I’M IN Neurodisparity Fellowship Initiative, EMD Serono asked applying institutions to consider how they could maximize the impact of their fellows’ work, with the goal of creating shareable studies and processes that can lead to replicable improvements across the entire healthcare spectrum.
“The I’M IN Neurodisparity Fellowship enables MS researchers to explore and identify the complexities that create disparities of MS care so that steps can be taken to mitigate them,” said Dr. Lori Lebson, Senior Vice President, North America Medical Affairs for EMD Serono. “We are proud to invest in organizations actively seeking to understand and resolve these issues in ways that can be studied, taught, and replicated by others in order to ensure that all patients can receive accurate, equitable, and reliably high-quality care.”
