Black people’s risk factors for stroke ‘rising faster than for white people’

Stroke risk factors including high blood pressure and diabetes are rising faster among people from Black African and Caribbean backgrounds compared with their white counterparts, according to analysis.

Researchers at King’s College London analysed data from more than 8,500 adults over a 30-year period from the South London Stroke Register, one of the longest-running population-based stroke registers in the world.

The study found that while the prevalence of stroke risk factors, including diabetes and hypertension, were increasing faster among Black people, those from Black African backgrounds were also twice as likely to experience stroke without a prior risk factor diagnosis than white people, at a rate of 12% compared with 6%. About one in six people across the UK will have a stroke in their lifetime.

Diabetes was about twice as common in Black Caribbean and Black Africans on the stroke register compared with white participants, and high blood pressure was 29% more prevalent in Black Caribbean and 47% more prevalent in Black African people. Although diabetes rates increased for all ethnic groups over the 30-year study period, they increased most rapidly among Black African participants, rising from 21% between 1995 and 2004 to 41% between 2015 and 2024.

Dr Eva Emmett, a research fellow at King’s College London and the lead author of the study, said: “Our study shows that the prevalence of pre-stroke hypertension and diabetes is higher and increasing faster in ethnic minority and lower socioeconomic groups. Together with Black people’s younger age at stroke and higher likelihood of having a stroke without a prior risk factor diagnosis, these findings call for targeted and earlier primary prevention efforts.

“NHS health checks, which screen for hypertension and diabetes, begin at the age of 40. However, this may be too late for higher-risk groups who often experience stroke at a younger age.”

She called for “universal improvements in cardiovascular risk detection” as well as more targeted prevention strategies, such as younger screening age for those most at risk.

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Source: The Guardian, 28 July 2026