Strokes, Teachers, Confused Computers 15 May15
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Thank you for downloading this programme from BBC Radio 4. I'm Tim Harford. Hello and welcome to More or Less, your weekly guide to the numbers in news and in life. This week we abandon politics completely. Well... Not completely. We will be asking if the UK electoral system was based on proportional representation, who'd be the Prime Minister right now? But we'll also be asking whether it's true that lots of teachers quit the job before finishing their first year. And we'll be talking about computers that just can't count large numbers, such as the number of times this video has been viewed. And we'll be handing out a more or less seal of approval gold star to a newspaper that's admitted a statistical error.
But first, a number of listeners have got in touch over a news story earlier this week. There's been a big increase in the number of cases of stroke among relatively younger people.
A sharp rise in the number of strokes among people in their 40s and early 50s. The Stroke Association says there's been a big increase in the number of cases of stroke being suffered by people of working age.
Many people seem to be sceptical about this and they've asked us to look into the numbers, which come from the Stroke Association, a charity. The Stroke Association analysed hospital admissions data for NHS England and found some alarming increases. For men aged 40 to 54, for example, admissions for strokes have risen over the past decade and a half by 2,000 to over 6,000. They've rocketed, as the Stroke Association put it. Admissions for women of the same age rose by a third, and for 20 to 64-year-olds in general, they rose by a quarter. As the chief executive of the Stroke Association put it, there is an alarming increase in the numbers of people having a stroke in working age. But is there? This is Tony Rudd, a professor at King's College London and also NHS England's National Clinical Director of Stroke.
He doesn't think so.
Over the last few years, we've actually quite significantly changed our practice. So we're encouraging more people to come directly to hospital. There's been public awareness campaigns. And we are admitting more patients with mini-strokes to hospital than we ever used to. So the increase in the number of people coming into hospital may conceivably be due to an increased incidence of stroke. But I think it's probably more likely to be due to the fact that we're just admitting the greater proportion of patients than we used to.
Do we have a sense of what the background instance actually is, whether the problem is getting worse or better?
We do have evidence that actually the problem is getting better. So there are two proper epidemiological studies going on at the moment, population-based registers of stroke patients, one in Oxford and one in South London, and they've been going for a number of years now. And what they show is that the overall incidence of stroke is falling quite markedly. And that is in all age groups. So the evidence from the Stroke Association doesn't quite fit with perhaps the more detailed scientific evidence.
Do you think they were justified in saying that the incidence of strokes has rocketed?
No, I don't think they are justified in saying that. They need to be more robust in their evidence. use of data I would fully accept that I don't think you know whatever the reason you're doing it for whether it's a charity or a pharmaceutical company or whatever it's important that the data are used as carefully and as accurately as possible I do under fully understand and sympathize that the message around trying to get stroke rates down is absolutely critical and I do understand and I sort of respect them for it but on the other hand it just makes me feel uneasy
And do you think they're justified in blaming what they say is a rise on a sedentary and unhealthy lifestyle?
Well, I mean, we do know that sedentary lifestyle and increasing obesity and as a result, increasing rates of diabetes and possibly high blood pressure as well, that that is happening as a background phenomenon.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–5:47
2
Are stroke admissions really skyrocketing among people in their 40s and 50s?
5:47–10:18
3
Why does NHS England think rising hospital stroke numbers may not mean more strokes?
10:18–15:10
4
What evidence do epidemiological studies give about trends in stroke incidence?
15:10–21:50
5
How might lifestyle factors like obesity and diabetes affect future stroke rates?
21:50–23:43