Peggy Noonan writes about medical professionals, and about consumer health. Melanie True Hills, an atrial fibrillation survivor, is founder and CEO of StopAfib.org. So it's not surprising that they would be looking into some recent studies on the subject of atrial fibrillation and its treatment.
But some of the information they found during this research was surprising. They discovered, for instance, that there were significant differences between the statistics for whites, blacks and Hispanics. They also found that strokes were most common among people living in the "stroke belt" which are the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
"This research makes it clear that we need to continue to focus on awareness of atrial fibrillation and the resultant stroke risk, not just in the stroke belt but everywhere. And we cannot just take stroke for granted as something that 'runs in families', especially in the stroke belt and in certain populations. We can, and will, wipe out afib-related strokes."
http://stopafib.org/newsitem.cfm/NEWSID/251/African%20Americans%20and%20atrial%20fibrillation/stroke%20incidence%20in%20blacks%20in%20southeast%20US