Stroke rates nearly double in younger adults

National media including CNN, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report highlighted new research from University of Cincinnati experts that found strokes among adults ages 20 to 54 nearly doubled over almost three decades, even as short-term survival after stroke improved.

The research was published Sept. 23, 2026, in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“While stroke has traditionally been considered a disease of older adults, our findings show that stroke is becoming increasingly common in younger adults,” said study author Emily R. Fisher, MD, a vascular neurology fellow in the Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine in UC’s College of Medicine. “At the same time, more people are surviving these strokes, which means more younger adults may be living with the long-term effects of stroke.”

“Knowing that this is possible — that stroke doesn’t just happen in older people, that it can happen in younger people — and that there are ways in which we can try our best to prevent this is really an important takeaway,” study coauthor David Robinson, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine in UC’s College of Medicine, told CNN.

Read more about the research.

Read the U.S. News & World Report article.

Read the Spectrum News article.

Read the CNN article.

Read the Newsweek article.

Read the Gizmodo article.

Read the Healio article.

Read the Medscape article.

Featured photo at top of a woman talking with her doctor. Photo/Courtney Hale/iStock Photo.