Background: Ethnic differences in the prevalence of Parkinson's disease have been observed, but may be due to differences in screening instruments and diagnostic criteria.
Aims: To compare the prevalence of Parkinson's disease in Hong Kong Chinese and Australians in Sydney.
Methods: A door-to-door community survey in the Hong Kong Chinese population was carried out using a two-staged procedure (screening questionnaire followed by physical examination), which had been validated for use in the community in a survey among Australians, to determine the prevalence in Chinese and to compare with that in Australians.
Results: A total of 1080 households were contacted, the non-response rate was 27%. The prevalence among those aged 55 years in the community and above was 0.5%, and 0.186% for the overall population assuming no subjects were below 55 years. These figures are lower than the 3.6% for Australians, aged >55 years.
Conclusion: There appears to be a difference in prevalence of Parkinson's disease between Hong Kong Chinese and Australians in Sydney. Such differences may be due to documented differences in prevalence of genetic polymorphisms associated with Parkinson's disease between Chinese and Australians, or to differences in environmental factors.