Migraine is first cause of disability in under 50s: will health politicians now take notice?

Timothy J. SteinerEmail author,
Lars J. Stovner,
Theo Vos,
R. Jensen and
Z. Katsarava

The Journal of Headache and PainOfficial Journal of the "European Headache Federation" and of "Lifting The Burden - The Global Campaign against Headache"201819:17

https://doi.org/10.1186/s10194-018-0846-2

Received: 13 February 2018

Accepted: 14 February 2018

Published: 21 February 2018

Keywords

Headache disordersMigraineTension-type headacheMedication-overuse headacheBurden of diseaseDisabilityPublic healthGlobal Burden of Disease studyGlobal Campaign against Headache

If it were needed, more evidence of the disconcerting under-treatment of headache disorders has come from the Eurolight study [1]. The topic is not new. Twenty years ago, the International and American Headache Societies jointly voiced their dismay at the inadequacies of health care for headache [2]. In 2006, the European Headache Federation and World Headache Alliance described migraine as a “forgotten epidemic” [3]. Meanwhile, in 2003, the Global Campaign against Headache [4, 5, 6] engaged the World Health Organization (WHO) as partner in this cause [7], embarking on a worldwide action programme which began by assessing the magnitude of headache in the world [4, 8]. In 2011, WHO’s global survey of headache disorders and resources, a Global Campaign project, laid bare the scale and scope of under-treated headache everywhere, and its consequences [9]. WHO wrote, in a message sent inter alia to the world’s Ministries of Health: “This first global enquiry into these matters illuminates the worldwide neglect of a major public-health problem, and reveals the inadequacies of responses to it in countries throughout the world” [9]. No words could be clearer but, to make sure, WHO repeated the message soon after [10].