Commentary: Addressing Racial Disparities in Stroke: The Wide Spectrum Investigation of Stroke Outcome Disparities on Multiple Levels (WISSDOM).

ABSTRACT

Racial-ethnic disparities in stroke recovery are well-established in the United States but the underlying causes are not well-understood. The typical assumption that racial-ethnic disparities in stroke recovery are explained by health care access inequities may be simplistic as access to stroke-related rehabilitation, for example, does not adequately explain the observed disparities. To approach the problem in a more comprehensive fashion, the Wide Spectrum Investigation of Stroke Outcome Disparities on Multiple Levels (WISSDOM) was developed to bring together scientists from Regenerative Medicine, Neurology, Rehabilitation, and Nursing to examine disparities in stroke "recovery." As a result, three related projects (basic science, clinical science and population science) were designed utilizing animal modeling, mapping of brain connections, and community-based interventions. In this article we describe 1) the goals and objectives of the individual projects; and 2) how these projects could provide critical evidence to explain why racial-ethnic minorities traditionally experience recovery trajectories that are worse than Whites.