Map Redraws 'Stroke Belt'

Oregon, Washington edge out traditional southern states, says study

By Amanda Gardner
HealthScoutNews Reporter

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WEDNESDAY, Oct. 4 (HealthScoutNews) -- The "Stroke Belt" has been hiked up a notch or two. You're now more likely to die from a stroke if you live in Oregon or Washington than if you live in some southeast states that used to have the highest risk, says new research.

A study published in the October issue of Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association examined stroke mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics from 1968 through 1996.

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Deaths from various types of stroke went down 60 percent nationally in those years and were thought to have leveled off. The researchers wanted to see if the plateau was uniform and how the decline varied across regions, races and genders. The result, conveyed through a statistician's dream world of figures, formulas and charts, is an entirely new portrait of stroke mortality across the United States.

Around 1968, stroke mortality rates were about 40 percent higher than the national average in the so-called "Stroke Belt," including North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana. Now it looks as if Mississippi and Alabama, where stroke death rates declined 60 percent for women and more than 65 percent for men, are being edged out by Washington and Oregon, where declines were less -- about 55 percent for women and 60 percent for men.

Furthermore, rates in Oregon, Washington and Arkansas seem to be leveling out, whereas rates in Mississippi and Alabama continue to drop. "Alabama used to be the gut of the Stroke Belt, and the rate just dropped out of the bottom. It's one of the greatest declines, and nobody knows why," says lead study author George Howard, professor and chairman of the department of biostatistics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

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