Oxford-Cameroon Atherosclerosis and Stroke Study (OxCASS)

Stroke prevention strategies designed in Europe or North America may not work for people of African descent, yet almost no large-scale studies have tested this directly. The Oxford-Cameroon Atherosclerosis and Stroke Study (OxCASS) will compare how stroke and the artery disease that causes it behave in Black African populations living in the UK and in Cameroon, where environmental and genetic factors differ sharply. Current guidelines are based almost entirely on data from white and Asian populations. Without knowing whether the same risk factors, disease mechanisms, and outcomes apply to people of African descent, clinicians cannot tailor prevention or treatment. The project will first mine existing UK cohort data to quantify ethnic differences in stroke burden and prognosis. Then, in Cameroon, researchers will recruit 500 acute stroke patients and 500 matched controls to pinpoint how cervical and intracranial atherosclerosis contributes to stroke risk in Africans, and how local social and environmental factors alter outcomes. If successful, the study will provide the hard epidemiological evidence needed to adjust prevention policies for Black African communities in the UK and across Africa. It will also establish a biobank of plasma and DNA, enabling future discovery research on stroke biology in African populations—a field that has been almost entirely neglected.