Stroke prevention education ‘must start with young adults’

New Zealand has the world’s second-highest risk of stroke among developed countries, with more than one in four young adults at risk, an Auckland University of Technology academic has said.

Valery Feigin, director of the university’s national institute for stroke and applied neurosciences, said that NZ had a 26.4 per cent lifetime risk of stroke, compared with 24.4 per cent for Canada, 23.7 per cent for the United States and 21 per cent for Australia. The highest is Finland, with a risk rate of 29.3 per cent.

In a university statement, he said this indicated that NZ’s healthcare system needed to focus on stroke prevention “at a much earlier age than 40 years”.