The decline in stroke mortality it the United States may have resulted from declining incidence improved survival of stroke patients, or both. In this study HIP Investigator Dr. Maureen Smith examined trends in the rate of hospitalized stroke in Minneapolis/ St Paul between 1980 and 1990. This was done through obtaining lists of discharge codes from Minneapolis/St Paul hospitals, identifying hospitalizations for acute cerebrovascular disease, and randomly selecting 50% of the cases for medical record abstraction.
They found that the incidence of stroke may have declined among 30- to 74-year-old residents of Minneapolis/St Paul in the early 1980s. However, there was little indication of such a trend between 1985 and 1990, a period of slow decline or no decline in stroke mortality in that population.
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