Is the Incidence of MS Increasing in Black Americans?

Studies from past decades suggested that multiple sclerosis (MS) was less common in black Americans than in white people of European descent. To provide current data on MS by race, researchers in one Southern California healthcare system analyzed almost 10 million person-years' worth of data from 2008 through 2010.

Race/ethnicity distribution within the entire health system was 37.5% white, 10.4% black, 39.9% Hispanic, 9.4% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 2.8% other/mixed. Among the 496 individuals newly diagnosed with MS, 52.0% were white, 21.4% black, 23.4% Hispanic, and 2.6% Asian. There was no difference in time from first symptoms to diagnosis for the different races. Thus, the proportion of black people with a first diagnosis of MS was hig…