1975 to 2019 Saw Decrease in Stroke Mortality for Men, Women

Mortality: Sharp increase was seen in stroke death with increasing age; a steeper decline was seen for ischemic versus hemorrhagic stroke mortality.

From 1975 to 2019, there was a decrease in age-standardized stroke deaths for men and women, according to a study recently published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Cande V. Ananth, Ph.D., M.P.H., from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and colleagues conducted a sequential time series analysis to examine stroke mortality trends among 4,332,220 people aged 18 to 84 years in the United States between 1975 and 2019. Trends in overall, ischemic, and hemorrhagic stroke were examined.

The researchers found that from 1975 to 2019, there was a decrease in age-standardized stroke death from 87.5 to 30.9 per 100,000 (incidence rate ratio, 0.27; average annual decline, −2.78 percent).

Among men, the age-standardized death rate decreased from 112.1 to 38.7 per 100,000 (incidence rate ratio, 0.26; average annual decline, −2.80 percent). With increasing age, stroke mortality increased sharply. A steeper decline in ischemic than in hemorrhagic strokes was observed.

“The contribution of predisposing risk factors to declines in stroke mortality underscores opportunities to develop public health campaigns and interventions to reduce untoward behaviors that negatively affect stroke and metabolic health,” the authors write.

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