ESOC 2026 | Gaps in sex equity in stroke care: risk recognition, treatment, and systems of care

I was in a session with the joint session with European Stroke Organization and World Stroke Organization looking at primary and secondary prevention of stroke and this was really something that we need to put a sex equity lens on. And in terms of where the gaps still are we’ve divided it into three ways looking at recognizing risks looking at where the treatment gaps are and then where there are system gaps. And for recognizing risk we know that women are 25 to 32 percent less likely to be diagnosed as having a stroke in the pre-hospital setting that’s in the ambulance and also in the emergency department. And we’re seeing this and we’re thinking maybe it’s because women are not recognized as having a stroke they might have a different symptom profile compared to men in terms of stroke and so that’s recognizing risk. And the other thing we need to think about recognizing risk is are we thinking about female-specific risk factors for example are we asking about adverse pregnancy outcomes menopause status are they on oral contraceptive pills. And the next thing to think about is where are the treatment gaps are we prescribing these women guideline-recommended doses are they being discharged home with treatment medications. And finally looking at more sort of system-wide gaps and we’re thinking about whether we are addressing social determinants of health whether we are enrolling more women in clinical trials and how does this help us that data when we enroll women in clinical trials how does that get translated into clinical practice

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