World Stroke Organization: Global Stroke Fact Sheet 2025

Background: Among non-communicable disorders (NCDs), stroke remains the second leading cause of death and the third leading cause of death and disability combined (as expressed by disability-adjusted life-years lost—DALYs) in the world. Aims: The study was aimed to estimate global, regional and nationa burden of stroke and its risk factors from 1990 to 2021. Methods: Finding presented in this paper were derived mainly from the Global Burden of Disease 2021 Study on stroke burden published in The Lancet Neurology 2024: 23: 973-1003. Results: The estimated global cost of stroke is over US890 billion (0. 66% of the global GDP). From 1990 to 2021, the burden (in terms of the absolute number of cases) increased substantially (70. 0% increase in incident strokes, 44. 0% deaths from stroke, 86. 0% prevalent strokes, and 32% DALYs), with the bulk of the global stroke burden (87. 0% of deaths and 89. 0% of DALYs) residing in lower-income and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs). Stroke attributable to metabolic risks constituted 69. 0% of all strokes, environmental risks constituted 37. 0%, and behavioral risks constituted 35. 0%. Conclusion: This World Stroke Organization (WSO) Global Stroke Fact Sheet 2025 provides the most updated information that can be used to inform communication with all internal and external stakeholders; all statistics have been reviewed and approved for use by the WSO Executive Committee and leaders from the Global Burden of Disease research group.