Nebraska Parkinson's Disease Registry

The American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA) and The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF) are co-funding the Nebraska Parkinson's Disease Registry with a three-year commitment. The funding reinstates the Nebraska Registry (suspended in October 2004 for budgetary reasons), allowing researchers to collect data with accurate, historical and current information on Parkinson's patients. 

The Nebraska Parkinson's Disease Registry was the first operational registry for the disease in the United States, offering researchers a valuable tool in amassing epidemiological data. The Registry has already allowed researchers to measure prevalence in the urban Omaha area (3.48 per 1,000 of those age 60 or more had Parkinson's) versus the less populated agricultural central and western regions (14.82 per 1,000 and 11.50 of 1,000 respectively). 


The Nebraska Registry develops a resource for recruiting a valid sample for assessing exposure to a wide range of risk factors. The Parkinson's Disease Registry Act was enacted by the Nebraska legislature in 1996 to provide a central data bank of information for research purposes. The Registry collected data from early 1997 until its suspension in October, 2004. The Act requires that physicians and pharmacists report individuals diagnosed with Parkinson's and patients taking anti-Parkinson's medications to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Regulation and Licensure.