Community Outreach for Stroke Education

Abstract

See related article, pages 2331–2335. Educating the public on the warning signs of stroke is considered a critical part of the chain of survival and of better stroke care.1 Repeated studies have demonstrated that high-risk groups, such as the elderly, minority groups, or those of low socioeconomic status, often have the poorest knowledge of stroke warning signs.2–4 Although mass media can be a powerful tool in stroke public education,5 it is not without its limitations. To be effective, mass media needs adequate reach and frequency to break through the advertising “clutter”—which requires significant and sustained funding. Moreover, the ability of mass media to target specific high-risk subgroups, whether ethnic, socioeconomic, or linguistic, is unclear. In this issue of Stroke , Kleindorfer et al6 describe a community-based project in which beauticians were used to deliver stroke education to black women, …