Dying young

Decades of research show that racial and ethnic minority patients have worse access to health care and inferior clinical outcomes than white patients.^1,2 Life expectancy for all racial groups continues to improve in the United States, yet remains about 5 years less for black than white patients, primarily because of black patients' higher rate of heart disease.³ The racial disparity is not limited to cardiac conditions—the same inequity exists for neurologic conditions. Black patients die younger than white patients from cerebrovascular disease; have less access to Parkinson disease treatments, such as dopaminergic medications or deep brain stimulation; are less likely to receive acute interventions like tissue plasminogen activator for ischemic stroke; and are referred less often for subspecialty evaluations.^4–8 Black–white disparities are now evident for patients with muscular dystrophy (MD), a group of inherited muscle diseases that lead to early death due to respiratory or cardiac failure.

In this issue of Neurology®, Kenneson et al.⁹ deepen our view of racial inequities in neurologic care and outcomes by reporting strikingly early mortality for black patients with MD. The authors examined 20 years of US mortality data and found that black patients …