The number of people living with Parkinson’s disease (a progressive brain condition causing slow movements and tremor) is steadily increasing. This is partly because people are living longer, and Parkinson’s becomes more common with increasing age. We last studied the CPRD database in 2015, when we calculated that around 137000 people in the UK had Parkinson’s.
We now plan to study the CPRD database again, to obtain up-to-date numbers. We will use more detailed methods to be more accurate. We will the count of the numbers of people with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s in GP records (which is what we examined in 2015). We will also count cases of Parkinson’s recorded in hospital admissions. This will correct for errors when Parkinson’s has been missed out of GP records.
We will use this information to examine several different factors that may be causing the increased numbers of people with Parkinson’s. We will look at known factors: age, gender (men are twice as likely to get Parkinson’s as women) and ethnicity (Parkinson’s is more common in certain ethnic groups). We will also examine other factors, for which there is limited evidence in previous studies: whether living in rural areas increases the risk of Parkinson’s compared to urban areas; and whether Parkinson’s is related to levels of poverty. Learning about these factors will increase our understanding about the causes of Parkinson’s.
Knowing up-to-date and more accurate numbers of people with Parkinson’s will help planning for healthcare and social services.
We aim to update the estimates of the incidence and prevalence of Parkinson’s in the UK, derived from a combination of diagnostic coding of Parkinson’s and the use of anti-Parkinson’s drug therapy. Prevalence and incidence rates will be expressed as the numbers per 100,000 person years, using 5-year time bands above 20 years old. 95% confidence intervals. Estimates of numbers of people living with Parkinson’s in the UK, 4 nations, and large regions of England, will be calculated by applying the prevalence rates from CPRD adjusted for age and sex/gender distribution from UK census data from the Office for National Statistics. The relationship between socioeconomic status and the prevalence and incidence of Parkinson’s will be examined. Secular trends in the incidence and prevalence will derived to see if there is evidence of an increase after accounting for changes in the population structure. Secular trends in case fatality will be used to test whether increase in prevalence is partially explained by greater life expectancy. Findings will be used to support our policy and campaigns work relating to service provision for people with Parkinson’s.
Key variables: Diagnostic code for Parkinson’s; Prescription of specific anti-Parkinson’s drug therapy; Index of Multiple Deprivation Domains
Donald Grosset - Chief Investigator - Parkinson's UK
Donald Grosset - Corresponding Applicant - Parkinson's UK
Cathal Doyle - Collaborator - Parkinson's UK
Katherine Grosset - Collaborator - Parkinson's UK
Lance Lee - Collaborator - Parkinson's UK
Prasanth Anand Iruthayaraj - Collaborator - Parkinson's UK
Romel Gravesande - Collaborator - Parkinson's UK
Yoav Ben-Shlomo - Collaborator - University of Bristol
HES Admitted Patient Care;ONS Death Registration Data;Patient Level Index of Multiple Deprivation Domains;Practice Level Rural-Urban Classification