In Florida, black young adults are hospitalized for stroke at a rate three times higher than their white and Hispanic peers, a new study by University of South Florida researchers reports.
The study was presented at the American Heart Association's Council on Epidemiology and Prevention Annual Conference and appears in the online version of the international journal Neuroepidemiology.
Disparities in stroke outcomes between black and white patients have been widely reported for years. While overall death rates for stroke are down, blacks bear a disproportionate burden of disease, disability and death from strokes, said lead author Elizabeth Barnett Pathak, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology at the USF College of Public Health.
"Our study shows this black-white disparity hasn't improved. In fact, it's clear that the gap emerges even at relatively young ages - among adults hospitalized for strokes in their 20s and 30s - and widens with increasing age," Dr. Pathak said. "It points toward an urgent need for primary prevention of hypertension, obesity, and other stroke risk factors among African Americans to eliminate disparities in stroke."
While most strokes occur among the elderly, stroke in young adults can lead to chronic illness and disability that places a terrible burden on the victims and their families, said Michael Sloan, MD, professor of neurology and director of the USF Stroke Program at Tampa General Hospital. "If the stroke is severe it can be very debilitating, impacting the ability of young people to work and raise their families."
And even in young adults strokes can be fatal. The Florida study found 8 to 10 percent of stroke patients died before discharge from the hospital.
The USF researchers examined more than 16,000 stroke cases of young adults hospitalized for stroke in Florida from 2001 through 2006. The study included men and women, ages 25 to 49, from the three largest ethnic groups in Florida: whites, blacks and Hispanics. Among the findings: