There’s a big gap between Black and white stroke victims. It’s a major health concern.

Black Americans suffer from strokes at far younger ages than white patients, according to a new study. The gap is nearly a decade. Although the overall rate of stroke has reduced over time across the population, the findings highlight concerning trends and health disparities that have seen little improvement in more than two decades. Researchers at Brown University evaluated stroke trends using data from 17 hospitals in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky from 1993 to 2015, recording strokes for a full year from 1993 to 1994 and in 1999, 2005, 2010 and 2015 for a total of more than 9,700 cases. They found the rate of stroke decreased from 230 cases per 100,000 people to 188 cases in that time, according to the report published Wednesday in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Across the 22 years the group reviewed, however, the rate of stroke among Black patients remained up to 80% higher than the rate among white patients, even after study authors adjusted for age and sex. “We found that the rate of stroke is decreasing over time in both Black and white people – a very encouraging trend for U.S. prevention efforts,” said study...