UPDATE: "Up to" 600 children per year suffer stroke in Australia?
Someone has posted the Stroke Foundation’s response to an email query about the figure of 600 children per year who apparently suffer stroke in Australia in the comments section of my article.
The Stroke Foundation response in their email says that up to 600 children suffer strokes in Australia, which is not what their website says; the website says approximately 600.
This appears to be a high overestimate, that originally derives from the number of newborn children who suffer strokes, which is much higher than the rate of strokes in the general childhood population.
The Stroke Foundation’s previous figure of 300-500 children who suffer strokes was also probably a high estimate, for the actual figure should be around 200 children every year, if our rates of childhood stroke are the same as other countries.
Why, for goodness’ sake, do we have no statistical record of these figures?
The full article below details how I ferreted out the source of these incorrect estimates: