Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).After heart disease, stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide.In the U.S., the risk of having a first stroke is at least 1.6 times as high for Black people as for white people.
Black people also have the highest rate of mortality from stroke, out of any ethnic or racial group.A better understanding of this increased susceptibility can help doctors and health policymakers tackle the underlying causes. The challenge is complex, however, because stroke is associated with multiple environmental and genetic risk factors. Scientists have found that genes account for 38% of the risk of having the most common kind of stroke, ischemic stroke.