Stroke Mortality Among Alaska Native People :: Article Review, Ronnie Horner

My article review is on, â€Å"Stroke Mortality Among Alaska Native People†, by Ronnie Horner. The Alaskan Natives have been suffering with the vast number of mortality rates caused by strokes. This article was written to successfully understand the Alaskan’s stroke problem or factors that contribute to this problem, and eventually find strategies that will aid in its prevention. The only problem that exists with trying to come up with strategies for prevention is the sparseness of the epidemiological data of the Alaskan Natives. It is hard to categorize the Alaskans in one separate group, the Horner states, â€Å"to its failure to consider Alaska Native People as one distinct cultural group, one among the many that comprise the American Indian/Alaska Native designation†(Horner 1). This creates a problem because it puts limitations on the efficiency of the epidemiology of the Alaskan Natives. With this being said, patterns have arisen in the number of stroke vict ims that are Alaskan Natives, â€Å"Stroke Mortality appears to be significantly elevated among relatively younger American Indians/Alaska Natives compared to US whites of similar age† (Horner 1). This shows that there must be an unknown factor that has led or caused the younger Natives to have a stroke. Something must had to change because the word â€Å"elevated† is used which indicates recently increased to what it normally was. It seems that Alaskan Natives are the number one ethnic group that is impacted by Stroke Mortality, Horner points out, â€Å"Of note, data for the 1990’s indicate that stroke mortality has decreased in all racial ethnic groups except for American Indians/ Alaskan Natives†(Horner 1). In detail this article attempts to figure out what factors are causing these elevations in stroke mortality that is not seen in any other ethnic group. Methods/Results/Conclusion The doctors had to first gather the death certificate data of the Alas kan Natives, Horner states, We conducted an analysis of death certificate data for the state of Alaska for the period 1984 to 2003, comparing age standardized stroke mortality rates among Alaska Natives residing in Alaska vs. US whites by age category, genders, stroke type, and time† (Horner 1). This will allow the doctors to examine the data to really conclude that Alaskan Natives were more prone to strokes than whites. With this data the doctors also need a population of Alaskans that they could carefully examine and study, Horner explains, â€Å"the study population was defined as all Alaskan residents who self-identified as Alaskan Native People.