"The tremendous number of strokes projected has large personal, social and economic consequences for the United States," Shawnita Sealy-Jefferson, an investigator at the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, says in a statement.
The researchers calculate the number of Mexican-American stroke victims is expected to rise from about 26,000 in 2010 to more than 120,000 in 2050 -- about a 350 percent increase. Strokes among non-Hispanic whites are projected to rise from about 300,000 in 2010 to more than 500,000 in 2050, or about a 75 percent increase.
The projections are based on data from the U.S. Census and data collected from 2000 and 2008 from the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi Project, an ongoing study in southeastern Texas that compares stroke in Mexican-Americans and non-Hispanic whites, Sealy-Jefferson says.
They took annual incidence rates and multiplied these figures by corresponding ethnic, age and sex-specific projected population counts by the decade.
Study co-author Lynda D. Lisabeth of the University of Michigan says more research is needed to understand the excess burden of stroke among Mexican-Americans.