Stroke (UK) — AMAP Search-Listening + NHS Prescription Audience
Client: Stroke Association (charity). Campaign: Meta, promoting the Stroke Support Helpline. Audience: stroke survivors, families of survivors, carers of stroke patients.
Two aggregate, cookie-free layers. First, search listening across six custom clusters covering the whole stroke journey: symptoms and FAST, hospital and early recovery, rehab and hidden effects, carers and family support, benefits and practical questions, and medication. Second, NHS data. The QOF stroke and TIA disease register and English Prescribing Dataset dispensing for the stroke drug list.
Both layers land inside a Meta buy as geography. We score every postcode district on stroke density, band the result into delivery tiers, and hand it over ready to paste into ad sets. No data onboarding, no policy exception, nothing individual-level. The search clusters then drive the copy and creative, and they validate that the geographic weighting is pointing at live intent rather than stale prevalence.
Audience segments summary
| Segment | Audience in the brief | Core intent |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Symptoms, FAST & Act-Now | Family, general public | "Is this a stroke?" recognition and emergency |
| 2. Newly Diagnosed, Hospital & Early Recovery | Survivor + family | Acute window, what happens now |
| 3. Rehab, Recovery & Hidden Effects | Survivor + family | Aphasia, fatigue, emotional change, long tail |
| 4. Carers, Family & Support | Carers | Support, respite, groups, coping, isolation |
| 5. Practical, Financial & Benefits | Carers + survivors | Carer's Allowance, PIP, driving, care costs |
| 6. Medication & Secondary Prevention | Survivor | Clopidogrel, DOACs, warfarin, side effects |
| NHS + ONS geographic overlay | Weighting layer | QOF stroke/TIA register + weighted dispensing + Census unpaid care |
The NHS Geographic Build
Three published sources, because each covers a different leg of the brief.
The Quality and Outcomes Framework records the percentage of patients on each GP practice's stroke or TIA disease register as a share of total list size. OHID publishes it through Fingertips at GP practice, PCN, sub-ICB and ICB level. This is the closest thing England has to a stroke-prevalence census, so it anchors the model. Dispensing corroborates it rather than the other way round.
NHSBSA English Prescribing Dataset via OpenPrescribing, filtered to the weighted drug list (BNF 2.9 antiplatelets, BNF 2.8 anticoagulants). Gives dispensing volume per GP practice and its surrounding postcode area, refreshed monthly, which adds movement that QOF's annual cycle misses.
A composite index, banded into delivery tiers
Scored per postcode district and banded into delivery tiers (Tier 1 top decile, Tier 2 next, and so on). Meta caps locations per ad set, so we deliver it pre-banded to fit ad-set structure rather than as one long list. Used as a weighting overlay on geography, never as an individual-level targeting layer.
QOF and EPD are England. Scotland and Northern Ireland publish their own equivalents through Public Health Scotland, the Scottish Stroke Care Audit, NISRA and the NI Department of Health. A UK-wide buy means a separate assembly step for the devolved nations, and those layers are not identically defined.
Weighting the Drug List
The stroke drug list maps to the UK antiplatelet and anticoagulant ladder. It works two ways: each drug and brand becomes a search-listening keyword, and aggregate dispensing volume feeds the geographic overlay.
These drugs are not equally stroke-specific. Aspirin and the DOACs are dispensed for plenty of non-stroke indications, and prasugrel and ticagrelor are overwhelmingly cardiac. Pooled unweighted, the list would produce a map of general cardiovascular prescribing rather than stroke. So we weight it.
| Weight | Class | Substances | UK brands | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Antiplatelet, cerebrovascular-led | Clopidogrel, Dipyridamole (MR) | Plavix, Persantin Retard | NICE first-line secondary prevention after ischaemic stroke or TIA is clopidogrel 75mg monotherapy. Dipyridamole MR is used almost entirely in cerebrovascular disease, typically where clopidogrel is unsuitable. The cleanest stroke-survivor signal in the list. |
| Medium-high | Antiplatelet, broad | Aspirin (75mg dispersible / gastro-resistant) | Various | Stroke and TIA drive a lot of low-dose aspirin volume, but so does cardiac secondary prevention. Strong signal, lower specificity. |
| Medium | Anticoagulant, AF-driven | Apixaban, Rivaroxaban, Edoxaban, Dabigatran etexilate, Warfarin sodium | Eliquis, Xarelto, Lixiana, Pradaxa, Marevan | Atrial fibrillation is the leading cause of cardioembolic stroke, and this is the class that prevents it. Indexes both the highest-risk population and the post-cardioembolic-stroke population. Best signal for prevention and FAST messaging. |
| Low | Antiplatelet, cardiac | Prasugrel, Ticagrelor | Efient, Brilique | Licensed for acute coronary syndrome and PCI, not stroke. Include for completeness, down-weight heavily, or drop. |
| Low | Heparins and LMWH | Heparin sodium, Enoxaparin, Dalteparin sodium, Tinzaparin sodium | Clexane, Fragmin, Innohep | Mostly VTE prophylaxis and treatment, much of it inpatient and so outside community dispensing data, plus cancer and pregnancy VTE. Weakest stroke signal in the list. |
High-intensity statins (atorvastatin, simvastatin) and antihypertensives (amlodipine, ramipril, losartan) are standard post-stroke care and would add volume, but their dispensing is so large and so general that it dilutes the map. Recommend leaving them out of the weighting and using them only as a tie-breaker.
Search-Listening Clusters
Six clusters covering all three audiences in the brief. Run blended for scale, or split to match creative. For a helpline campaign, clusters 3, 4 and 5 carry the most value, because that is where people are actively looking for what the helpline provides.
01. Stroke Symptoms, FAST & Act-Now
Description. The recognition window. Someone experiencing symptoms, or more often a family member watching them happen and trying to work out whether it is a stroke. Heavily FAST-campaign-shaped language in the UK.
Why it matters. Highest urgency in the build, and it catches families at the moment the relationship with the charity starts.
02. Newly Diagnosed, Hospital & Early Recovery
Description. The acute and immediate post-acute window. Survivor and family both searching, often from a hospital ward or the first week home. Practical, frightened, information-hungry.
Why it matters. The moment families search hardest, and the moment the Stroke Association becomes indispensable. High receptivity to a helpline message.
03. Rehab, Recovery & Hidden Effects
Description. The long tail, and the least-served part of the journey. Aphasia and communication, fatigue, emotional and personality change, memory, vision, spasticity. The effects nobody warns people about.
Why it matters. Hidden effects are the top reason survivors and families call months after discharge, and people search them rather than ask a clinician. This is where the helpline earns its keep, and it gives creative a clear line: the effects nobody told you about.
04. Carers, Family & Support
Description. The carer audience named in the brief. Partners, adult children and parents caring for a stroke survivor, looking for help, respite, other people in the same position, and permission to admit they are struggling.
Why it matters. The helpline already supports around 5,500 carers and family members a year, so this is a proven fit rather than an assumption. Carers search on their own behalf far less than they search on the survivor's, so the terms that admit their own need are small-volume and very high-intent.
05. Practical, Financial & Benefits
Description. The paperwork and logistics of life after stroke. Benefits, Carer's Allowance, PIP, driving, work, care costs, blue badge, equipment. The most concrete questions, and the ones people most want a human on the phone for.
Why it matters. Strongest call-to-action cluster in the build. Someone asking "can I drive after a stroke" or "how do I claim Carer's Allowance" wants a definite answer from a person, which is the helpline offer. Put the hardest-working CTA creative here.
06. Medication & Secondary Prevention
Description. The NHS-seeded cluster. Searchers researching, starting or managing the exact drugs on the list, generic and brand. Query language runs on side effects, bleeding and bruising, interactions, missed doses, and alcohol.
Why it matters. Naming a specific medication means an active treatment decision. It also corroborates the geographic overlay directly, so the two layers reinforce each other. Regulated territory, so creative stays clear of medical claims.
Live AMAP UK Segments
For any leg running outside Meta (display, native, video, CTV, mobile), these standing UK segments are live now with no build time. Pulled from the Goldfish cb_categories taxonomy (UK, country_id 3) on 2026-07-30.
| Segment | ID | Domain / Category |
|---|---|---|
| Elder Care | 20978 | Interest / Health and Medical Services |
| Senior Health | 20927 | Interest / Healthy Living |
| Health Services | 20724 | Interest / Health and Medical Services |
| Health Care and Physicians | 20975 | Interest / Health and Medical Services |
| Hospitals | 20841 | Interest / Health and Medical Services |
| Health & Pharma | 20891 | Interest / Pharmaceuticals, Conditions, and Symptoms |
| Pharmaceuticals, Conditions and Symptoms (All) | 20890 | Interest |
| Medical Health (All) | 21049 | Interest |
| Healthy Living (All) | 20787 | Interest |
| Smoking Cessation | 20849 | Interest / Healthy Living |
| Local News | 20751 | Interest / News and Politics |
| Retirement Planning | 20742 | Interest / Personal Finance |
| Age 45 to 59 | 666 | Demographics / Age |
| Age 60 to 64 | 667 | Demographics / Age |
| Age 65 to 74 | 668 | Demographics / Age |
| Age 75 to 84 | 669 | Demographics / Age |
There is no stroke segment in the UK taxonomy. We confirmed that live, both vector and string search. The stroke specificity in this build comes from the custom search-listening clusters and the NHS overlay, which is a sharper build than a segment pick would have been. Carer specificity comes from the search-listening cluster covering carers and family support.
Sources
- QOF stroke and TIA prevalence by GP practice — OHID Fingertips, National General Practice Profiles
- Unpaid care, England and Wales — ONS bulletin
- UK stroke statistics — Stroke Association
- Stroke Support Helpline — Stroke Association
- Lived Experience of Stroke, Chapter 3 — Caring for a stroke survivor
Built by AMAP Data / Goldfish Ads. UK build, July 2026.
Two privacy-safe layers: real-time search-listening intent plus aggregate NHS and ONS geography. No health-condition inference, individual medical profiling, or cookies.
AMAP UK segment IDs verified live against the Goldfish cb_categories taxonomy (UK, country_id 3) on 2026-07-30. Meta interest IDs and reach figures from the facebook-audience-segments index, global reach.