A new study suggests people living in rural
Ontario could be at greater risk of having a stroke than people in cities.
They categorize communities of less than
10.000 people as rural and the rest as urban.
They also found that those strokes in rural
Ontario were more likely to be fatal.
The study -- published in the journal Circulation:
Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes -- looked at data
gathered between 2008 and 2012 from six million Ontario residents.
Lead author Moira Kapral says the research
found rural residents were less likely to be screened for a variety of
risk factors.
It also found that urban residents were at
least 10 per cent more likely to be screened for conditions such as diabetes or
high cholesterol.
But Kapral said those gaps almost vanished
once people had survived a stroke, suggesting care for stroke patients was
equal in both urban and rural settings.
She found that 81 per cent of urban dwellers
were screened for diabetes compared with 71 per cent in rural areas.
The gap for cholesterol screening was even
wider, with 78 per cent of urban residents being checked out compared to
66 per cent of those in smaller communities.
