- Researchers are reporting that Black adults are more likely to experience a stroke and at a younger age than their white counterparts.
- Despite the overall number of strokes declining over a 22-year period, Black Americans still face a higher risk.
- Experts say racial inequity in healthcare remains a serious issue in the United States.
Black adults in the United States are more likely to experience a stroke than their white counterparts, according to a new study published in the journal Neurology.
The researchers reported that between 1993 and 2015, the number of strokes decreased in the United States.
However, during that same period, researchers noted that although stroke incidences decreased for Black adults, their overall risk of stroke compared to white adults remained about the same.
The researchers said inequities in healthcare remain widespread with certain racial and ethnic groups bearing a much larger proportion of the burden.
The research team used data from the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Stroke Study (GCNKSS) as the basis for their research. The GCNKSS is a large, population-based study of stroke among Black and white people within a five-county region of Ohio and Kentucky. Every five years, stroke data from hospitals is collected over a one-year period, along with patient characteristics, such as age, sex, and race.
Researchers separated outcomes to see how different forms of stroke affected the Black population, white population, and combined population. Stroke diagnoses included
For the combined population, the number of strokes of any kind per 100,000 people dropped from 230 in 1993 to 188 in 2015. Although the number of strokes within the Black population also declined…
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