Stroke is a major disease of socio-economic and Public Health importance in the ageing populations of Europe. It is the third most common cause of death and most common cause of adult physical disability. The World Health Organisation have estimated there were 1.4 million deaths in Europe from stroke in 1999 and 1.17 million Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) lost.

The European Register of Stroke (EROS) project, led by Professor Charles Wolfe who has previously co-ordinated two European Union BIOMED projects relating to health services research in stroke. The other participants on the EROS project have previously been involved in similar projects.

The European Register Of Stroke (EROS) programme will assess the quality of stroke care provision in the following priority areas of the Public Health call of the Framework V Programme. This project brings together a multidisciplinary team comprising of: epidemiology, health service research, social anthropology, statistics, health economics, stroke medicine, rehabilitation medicine, neurology, quality assurance and audit. Expertise in International and European research into stroke and its coordination and dissemination is present in many participant centres who have worked successfully on International and European projects.