|
Stories for Reprint
African Americans and Lupus:
Rich or Poor, Disease Begins the Same
By Ferdous Al-Faruque, MARRTC Staff
African Americans with lupus who use public health care start out with no real difference in the severity of their disease compared to African Americans in private care according to a new study by Emory University in Atlanta.
The study is part of a project called the Georgia Lupus Registry. It is the first of its kind, allowing researchers to gather data on a large population of people with lupus and giving them more insight into the disease.
After comparing more than 100 African American lupus patients from a public care clinic, the Grady Lupus Clinic, to those from private care facilities in Atlanta, researchers found that at least in the early stages of the disease, public health care patients with lupus were no worse than those in private care. "Based on these results, we think that any differences in the future outcome of the disease would be more related to socioeconomic and environmental factors," says Cristina Drenkard, assistant professor at Emory and co-investigator of the study.
Lupus is a disease that causes the body's immune system to mistakenly attack tissue and organs. In some cases, the disease can be very serious. The disease affects more women and two to three times as many African-Americans as Caucasians.
Sam Lim, the study's principal investigator and the director of the Grady Lupus Clinic, says past research has shown people with lupus who use public health care often end up having worse outcomes than people in private care. "People in public health care may not get all the care they need and hence they have poor outcomes," says Lim. The Grady Lupus Clinic is the only major public health care clinic for people with lupus in Atlanta. Lim says by understanding how lupus specifically affects African Americans they can help improve the health of those most impacted by the disease.
Since African Americans are more at risk of lupus, conducting the registry in three Georgia counties with large African American populations gave researchers at Emory University access to more people with the disease. "We (now have data) on how lupus affects a very susceptible group, African Americans, within the community and not just in an academic center," Lim adds. "That's really the power behind the lupus registry."
Lim says the study has received new funding, which will allow researchers to begin following people with lupus over a period of time and to compare the care at private clinics to public health clinics. The new study may help clarify whether or not quality and access to care may be the reason for worse outcomes in public health care lupus patients.
This is the first story of a three part series on the Georgia Lupus Registry conducted by Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Records of over 1400 African American lupus patients from Fulton, DeKalb and Richmond counties in Georgia are currently being collected and analyzed.
|
|
