Prevalence of stroke in the Parsi community of Bombay.

A door-to-door survey of 14,010 Parsis living in colonies in Bombay, India, screened people for possible neurologic diseases. High school graduates, social workers, and a medical student administered a questionnaire that had been shown in a pilot study to have a sensitivity of 100% for identifying persons with stroke. Neurologists used defined diagnostic criteria to evaluate those who were positive on the screening survey. One hundred eighteen persons (57 men, 61 women) suffered from stroke (842.3 cases/100,000 population). The age-specific prevalence ratios increased with age for both sexes and for each age group. Age-adjusted prevalence ratios were slightly higher for men than for women. The most common type of stroke was ischemic (114 cases).