Okay I accept that this is a bit of an odd title for a blog post and poll but please bear with me!

As regular readers of this blog may know my background is in healthcare survey research. One of the areas I was involved in exploring was the lives of people with multiple sclerosis.

When one working with the MS community a good understanding of the landscape is vital. And a lot of this is based on statistical information. Often provided by government sources.

The problem was/is that this information is often at variance with the poll we conducted with people with MS. To gives you one such example is types of multiple sclerosis. It was often suggested that the number of people who had been diagnosed with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS) was in the region of 80% of the MS community. Our results were very different. RRMS never got more that 67% and in some cases lower that 60%. If you have any ideas as to why this should be please share in the comments box below.

A similar figure is given when we look at gender and multiple sclerosis. 80% is often given as the percentage of women who have multiple sclerosis. But I’m wondering if this is really true. The best way I have always found is to as PwMS themselves.

So we would like to invite you to take part in a short poll below which asks the question. “To help us with our understanding of multiple sclerosis could you please share your gender with us?”

Thanks very much in advance.