PREVENTION OF STROKE: A STRATEGIC GLOBAL IMPERATIVE

Abstract

The increasing stroke burden in the world strongly suggests that currently implemented primary stroke prevention strategies are not sufficiently effective, and new effective primary prevention strategies with larger effect size are needed. In this article, we reviewed the latest stroke epidemiology literature with the emphasis on the recent Global Burden of Disease 2013 Study stroke burden estimates from 1990 to 2013, highlight the problems with current primary stroke and cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention strategies, and outline new developments in primary stroke and CVD prevention. We also suggested key priorities for the future, including comprehensive prevention strategies that target people with all levels of CVD risk, implementation of an integrated approach to promote health behaviors and reduce health disparities, capitalizing on information technology to advance prevention approaches and techniques, and incorporation of culturally appropriate education about healthy lifestyle into standard education curricula early in life. Given the already immense and fast increasing burden of stroke and other major noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) which threatens worldwide sustainability, governments could develop and implement an emergency action plan addressing the primary prevention of NCDs.