A risk factor is something about you, your setting or your lifestyle that makes it more likely that you will experience a certain health outcome, such as a stroke.

A non-modifiable risk factor is one that you cannot do anything about, such as how old you are.

In this section, we describe the key non-modifiable risk factors for stroke: age, biological sex, race and ethnicity, genetics and certain medical conditions.

It is important to be aware of your risk factors. If you have multiple non-modifiable risk factors,it is especially important to be proactive about working to reduce the other risk factors that you can change.