Stroke Belt leads U.S. in stroke incidents

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., March 3 (UPI) -- The stroke belt -- Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina and Tennessee -- has the highest stroke rate, researchers say.

In addition to quantifying the incidence of stroke in the so-called stroke belt in the South, the study found those who have a stroke are more likely to die in the South than elsewhere in the United States.

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health found major regional and racial disparities in stroke rates. Virginia Howard, an associate professor of epidemiology, said the highest stroke rate was in the coastal states of Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Researchers reviewed data on more than 26,500 participants with no history of stroke. The researchers kept in periodic telephone contact with the participants for nearly five years and documented 299 strokes to which they applied a rate formula.

The study found African-Americans age 65 and younger are more than twice as likely to have a stroke compared with Caucasians in any region.

"However, by the time they reach about age 80 and older, whites have a higher stroke rate compared with blacks," Howard says.

It is not clear why the differences change with age, but it may have to do with different types of strokes occurring in different age groups, Howard says.

The study was presented at the International Stroke Conference in San Antonio.