Open AccessEthnicity and multiple sclerosis - moving beyond preconceptions
Author(s) -
Ben Jacobs,
Ruth Dobson
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
advances in clinical neuroscience and rehabilitation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2397-267X
pISSN - 1473-9348
DOI - 10.47795/dqjp9663
Subject(s) - ethnic group , multiple sclerosis , variation (astronomy) , incidence (geometry) , demography , disease , medicine , psychology , pathology , sociology , immunology , anthropology , physics , astrophysics , optics
Historically, multiple sclerosis (MS) was thought to be substantially more common in individuals from European ancestral backgrounds. Recent studies have challenged this preconception, with a concerning increase in incidence in Black British and African American individuals. In this review we provide a brief overview of the evidence for ethnic variation in MS risk, summarise potential explanations for this variation, and illustrate how these observations could be used to provide potential insights into disease biology.