Over-Impacted, Under-Represented: Addressing Health Disparities in Multiple Sclerosis

Target Audience
The target audience for this initiative includes MS specialists, general neurologists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other healthcare professionals involved in the diagnosis and long-term management of patients with MS.

Program Overview
The prevalence of MS in racial and ethnic minority groups appears to be growing and its prognosis among these groups is often worse. With its historical management strategies formulated almost exclusively around patients of Caucasian descent, MS has a pressing need for improved approaches in patients of minority backgrounds. However, minimal guidance is publicly available on how to best meet the needs of diverse patient populations. Some of the greatest barriers to patient care among minority groups are their perceptions and experiences with healthcare providers. The organizers hope to address this gap by documenting the perspectives of racial and ethnic minority patients related to their MS care. These perspectives will then be embedded into expert discussion alongside supporting evidence of and resources to help providers address the issues raised. This unique CME initiative will enable learners to develop more culturally conscious clinical and communication-based skills to better assess and address the needs of minority patients with MS.

Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this activity, participants should be better able to:

Identify key variations in clinical presentation between different racial/ethnic populations with MS, and use these to apply individualized treatment strategies to achieve improved outcomes for these patients.
Discuss sociocultural views that may discourage racial and ethnic minority groups from seeking and/or complying with medical care, and apply strategies to form a comfortable and supportive management approach for patients of different backgrounds.
Review both interpersonal and publicly available approaches to the support of clinical trial engagement among racial and ethnic minority patients with MS in order to better inform and encourage patient participation.