Projections of the global, regional and national stroke burden by 2050: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

This study projected the incidence, prevalence, death and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) attributable to total strokes and pathological types in people aged ≥ 15 years for 204 countries and territories to 2050. Age- and sex-specific trends in rates were developed using XGBoost models incorporating national human development index, gross domestic product per capita, and demographic data from the Global Burden of Disease study, the World Bank, and the United Nations. Uncertainty intervals were calculated as the 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles of the distribution using a bootstrap-like method. From 2021 to 2050, the global absolute number of incident strokes is anticipated to increase by 31.64% (27.78–35.61), prevalent strokes by 58.00% (54.68–60.62), deaths from stroke by 11.88% (5.83–19.28), and DALYs due to stroke by 17.86% (10.63–25.18). Meanwhile, the age-standardised rate of stroke prevalence will increase by 2.67% (1.47–4.23). However, the age-standardised rates of stroke incidence, death and DALYs are projected to decrease by 8.54% (6.87–10.07), 21.51% (19.18–23.92) and 18.44% (15.83–20.95), respectively. In 2050, males are projected to exceed females across all age-standardised metrics. Ischaemic stroke will account for the largest proportion of the total-stroke burden, the burden of stroke in low to middle SDI countries will account for more than half of the total global burden of stroke, and Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania are projected to have the highest stroke burden in absolute numbers. Our projections suggested the global burden of stroke will increase substantially from 2021 to 2050, despite reductions in age-standardised rates.