Stroke statistics

This publication is the latest edition of a series of statistical compendia and supplements that document the burden of cardiovascular disease in the United Kingdom. This series of publications, published by the British Heart Foundation, usually focuses on coronary heart disease, but Stroke Statistics is jointly published by the British Heart Foundation and The Stroke Association and focuses on the important and substantial burden of stroke in the United Kingdom.

Stroke Statistics is designed for policy makers, health professionals, medical researchers and anyone else with an interest in stroke or cardiovascular disease. It aims to provide the most recent statistics related to the burden of stroke and to document the geographic, social and ethnic inequalities in the experience of stroke.

Stroke Statistics is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 documents trends and patterns in stroke mortality and premature mortality. Chapter 2 reports on the morbidity burden of stroke, both in terms of prevalence (the rate of people who have had a stroke in the past) and incidence (the rate of first ever strokes). Chapter 3 describes the burden of stroke on the National Health Service, in terms of drug therapy, hospitalisations and surgical procedures. Chapter 4 provides estimates of the prevalence of risk factors for stroke, broken down by age, sex, socioeconomic status and ethnicity. Details about Government targets to tackle the risk factor status of the population are also provided where available. Chapter 5 provides new estimates, calculated specifically for Stroke Statistics, of the economic cost of stroke to the National Health Service and to the United Kingdom economy.