Project Overview

Every five minutes, someone in Canada experiences a stroke. A stroke happens when a blood vessel in the brain is blocked or when there is bleeding in the brain. There are more women living with the consequences of stroke than men because the Canadian population is aging, and women live longer than men. Yet, fewer women than men are included in stroke research. Compared to men, women who survive stroke have greater difficulties doing daily activities like getting stressed or using the washroom. Scientists and doctors do not yet understand why stroke affects women and men differently. Also, research on the differences in stroke recovery between men and women has so far been focused on motor recovery (e.g., walking, using stairs). More work must be done to understand other issues that may affect women and men differently like problems with mental health, sleeping, memory, and feeling lonely. Answering these questions is critical for identifying treatments and therapies to help women recover their health and function after stroke.

The StrokeGoRed team has designed a research program to understand how and why women have worse outcomes than men after stroke. Our studies will involve five hospitals in four provinces. Our objectives are to:

• Determine whether women and men with suspected mild strokes receive different tests and treatments, and whether there are differences in the long-term risk of eventually having a bigger stroke.
• Evaluate whether women and men hospitalized with stroke experience differences in recovery in all aspects of health, including quality of life, mental health, sleep, memory, and loneliness.
• Study whether care and outcomes in First Nations patients hospitalized with stroke differ between women and men.
• Examine whether women and men access and use rehabilitation services differently, whether they are paying out-of-pocket for treatments, and whether there are differences in their ability to return to work.
• Test strategies to improve the representation of women in stroke research.

StrokeGoRed will be the first formal research network in Canada dedicated to studying stroke in women. We are a diverse group of champions for women’s brain health, including clinicians, researchers, an Ininiw scholar, people with lived experience, engineers, computer scientists, data scientists, statisticians, knowledge mobilization experts, educators, decision makers, and knowledge users. We have coast-to-coast representation. Some team members are still in training or are early in their careers, and others are already internationally recognized for their work in stroke and women’s brain health. We will work together to advance knowledge on how and why stroke affects women and men differently. Our program will provide training and mentorship to the next generation of researchers and clinicians working with patients with stroke. Our studies will lead to new discoveries on how to individualize stroke care and treatments to improve outcomes in women.

Principal Investigator

Amy Yu , Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Partners and Donors

Heart and Stroke Foundation

Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)