Living in a disadvantaged community may decrease the length of time a person can survive with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, by over 30%, a Michigan Medicine-led study suggests.
ALS is a progressive, incurable condition that causes muscle wasting and loss of muscle control.
While most people survive with ALS around two to four years, some people can live significantly longer.
In the study of more than 1,000 patients with ALS seen between 2012 and mid-2024, people from the most disadvantaged neighborhoods had up to a 37% shorter survival time compared to those from the most resourced areas.
U-M researchers used the Area Deprivation Index, a tool created at University of Wisconsin, which measures neighborhood disadvantage using factors such as income, education, employment and housing.
The results are published…