StrokeGoRed awarded $5M towards improving stroke care, treatment and recovery for women

Every year, more than 30,000 women in Canada experience a stroke, and the number one cause of premature death for women in Canada is heart conditions and stroke. Despite the prevalence of stroke among women, gaps in awareness, research, diagnosis, and care threaten women’s heart and brain health.

To help close these gaps, a Sunnybrook-led group of researchers championing women’s brain health has been awarded $5 million in funding over five years to investigate the diagnosis and treatment of stroke in women through the StrokeGoRed project.

Dr. Amy Yu and her team –– a diverse collaboration of clinicians, researchers, an Ininiw scholar, people with lived experience, engineers, computer scientists, data scientists, statisticians, knowledge mobilization experts, educators, decision makers, and knowledge users – are aiming to improve diagnosis and treatment of women living with the effects of stroke.

“Stroke is more prevalent among women, and impacts women differently, but sex differences in diagnosis and treatment have been under-studied,” says Dr. Yu, lead of the StrokeGoRed project team and a neurologist and senior scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute.

Their project – StrokeGoRed (Stroke in Women: Growing Opportunities to Realize optimal Evaluation, Diagnosis, and outcomes) – is one of two initiatives announced as a recipient of the Heart & Stroke Research Networks of Excellence in Women’s Heart and/or Brain Health.

StrokeGoRed will be the first formal national research network in Canada dedicated to studying stroke in women.

The team will work together to advance knowledge on how and why stroke affects women and men differently, and will provide training and mentorship to the next generation of researchers and clinicians working with patients who have had a stroke.

StrokeGoRed studies hope to lead to new discoveries on how to individualize stroke care and treatments to improve outcomes in women.

“We are hoping to get even closer to closing the gap on the inequities women face when it comes to their heart and brain health,” said Doug Roth, CEO, Heart & Stroke. “These teams represent some of the best Canadian minds, and I am looking forward to what we will learn from their research and how we can apply it to advance women’s heart and brain health.”

Heart disease and stroke are the leading cause of premature death in women in Canada, and women face distinct risk factors at different points in their lives including pregnancy and menopause. They are also more likely to experience certain types of heart and brain conditions which can impact their health.

See the Heart & Stroke Foundation news release for more information.