Southerners die from stroke more than in any other U.S. region, but exactly why that happens is unknown.
A new report by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the University of Vermont underscores that geographic and racial differences are not the sole reasons behind the South's higher stroke death rate.
The data is from UAB's Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study, which has enrolled more than 30,200 U.S. participants. The study confirms a greater-than 40 percent higher stroke death rate in eight southeastern states known as the Stroke Belt - Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina and Tennessee.
After factoring in age, race and sex-related factors, the predicted stroke risk was only slightly higher in Stoke Belt states compared to other regions (10.7 percent versus 10.1 percent), said George Howard, Dr.PH., professor of biostatistics in UAB's School of Public Health and a REGARDS principal. That risk was calculated using nine known risk factors common to stroke screening.
"We found geographic and racial differences are useful in predicting stroke risk, but they only explain less than half the picture. Something else is happening," Howard said. "It could be exposure to allergens in the home, it could be micronutrients in drinking water or it could be other factors considered 'non-traditional' because they don't fall into the list of nine factors commonly used to predict stroke risk."
The findings are reported in the Annals of Neurology.