Objective: This study aims to evaluate demographic correlates of time to diagnosis among adults with Parkinson’s disease in Texas.

Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder for which diagnosis is frequently delayed. The length of the diagnostic interval may be influenced by demographic that may affect symptom recognition, care-seeking behavior, and clinical suspicion.

Method: A retrospective cross-sectional study of adults diagnosed with Parkinson’s was conducted using self-reported data from the Parkinson’s Foundation* PD GENEration Genetic Registry¹. Collected variables include age at symptom onset, age at diagnosis, sex assigned at birth, race and ethnicity, and zip code based median household income. Diagnostic interval was defined as the difference between age at diagnosis and symptom onset. Data were non-normally distributed; therefore, Wilcoxon rank-sum, Kruskal–Wallis, and Spearman correlation analysis were performed.

Results: Younger age at symptom onset was associated with longer diagnostic delay and was the strongest predictor of time to diagnosis (Spearman ρ = −0.25; p < 0.001). Individuals with young-onset Parkinson’s disease experienced nearly double the diagnostic interval compared to typical-onset cases (3.78 vs. 1.87 years; p = 0.001). Women were diagnosed sooner than men, with significantly shorter diagnostic intervals (1.97 vs. 3.00 years; p = 0.007). Hispanic participants experienced shorter diagnostic intervals than non-Hispanic participants (2.25 vs. 2.93 years; p = 0.033). No significant differences in diagnostic interval were observed by income level based on zip code–level median household income (p = 0.372).

Conclusion: Based on the cross-sectional data from PD GENEration Genetic Registry for patients in Texas, time to diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease varies across demographic groups, with longer delays observed among men and individuals with younger age at onset. These findings may reflect social pressures influencing care-seeking behavior in men and lower clinical suspicion for Parkinson’s disease in younger populations. Interpretation is limited by reliance on self-reported data, skewed data distributions, limited racial diversity, and restriction to a single-state registry population.

References: 1. PD GENEration: Powered by the Parkinson’s Foundation. Parkinson’s Foundation. (n.d.). https://www.parkinson.org/advancing-research/our-research/pdgeneration

*PD GENEration is a flagship initiative of the Parkinson’s Foundation in partnership with Aligning Science Across
Parkinson’s (ASAP) and the Global Parkinson’s Genetics Program (GP2).

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/exploring-demographic-correlates-of-diagnostic-interval-of-parkinsons-disease/