A groundbreaking Parkinson’s research project in the UK called Predict-PD has surpassed its goal to recruit 10,000 participants.
Predict-PD was launched in March 2020 by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and University College London (UCL), with funding from Parkinson’s UK, and was one of the first studies to focus on the earliest phases of Parkinson’s.
It set out to recruit 10,000 people aged between 60 and 80 years old who do not have Parkinson’s, aiming to identify those at high risk of the condition before symptoms appear, and it has achieved this goal within four years.
The study got a significant boost after collaborating with health and technology company uMed, who helped to recruit over 7,000 participants through its network of 500 primary care group providers in the UK.
Professor Alastair Noyce, the Predict-PD study’s Principal Investigator (PI), said:
“Recruitment has progressed at a pace we never expected. We are another step closer to understanding who in the general population might be more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s and expedite the discovery of improved treatments and, ultimately, a cure for this debilitating condition.”
uMed also helped to increase the number of participants from ethnic minority groups from 3% to 10%, a significant improvement given that people from minority backgrounds continue to be underrepresented in Parkinson’s research across Europe and North America.
Dr Matt Wilson, uMed’s founder and CEO, explained that the Predict-PD study achieved this “by targeting eligible participants, who identified as being from an ethnic minority, with images of ethnically diverse patients in study communications. Tailoring communications in this way resulted in a significant increase in the proportion of participants coming from a minority background.”
Dr Katherine Fletcher, Research Communications Lead at Parkinson’s UK, has described how achieving greater diversity in studies like Predict-PD benefits everyone:
“We know Parkinson’s doesn’t discriminate. It is vital that research is representative of the whole Parkinson’s community, something that currently is not the case. Having a wider pool of the UK population involved in clinical trials means we can ultimately learn more about the progression of Parkinson’s, speed up diagnosis and access to new and better treatments for all.”
Find out more about the study and sign up for the trial on the Predict-PD website.
