A study published in the scientific journal, npj Parkinson’s Disease, estimates that 930,000 people in the U.S. will be living with the disease by 2020, further increasing to 1.2 million people by 2030.
“Our knowledge of Parkinson’s has evolved significantly and so should our understanding of the population that has this disease,” said James Beck, CSO of the Parkinson’s Foundation, and contributing author on the study.
“These findings will help attract the attention of federal and state government as well as the pharmaceutical industry to the growing need and urgency in addressing Parkinson’s disease,” he added.
The Parkinson’s Foundation formed the “Parkinson’s Prevalence Project” in 2014 to determine an updated estimate of the prevalence of Parkinson’s throughout North America. There were an estimated 680,000 people with the disease in the U.S. in 2010, the date of the last official census.
Later this year, the Parkinson’s Foundation will be leading phase two of the prevalence study to better understand, on a national scale, how many people are diagnosed each year with Parkinson’s as well as the rate of mortality of people with the disease.
