• The first is to bring together all of the published worldwide evidence of the burden. Until very recently, very little was known of the prevalence or burden of any headache disorder for more than half the people of the world: those living in most of the Western Pacific including China, all of South East Asia including India, all of Eastern Europe including Russia, most of Eastern Mediterranean and most of Africa.
• The second is to set up new studies in the parts of the world where the evidence is lacking or of poor quality. To achieve this step, better – and standardised – methodology is needed.

Headache-related burden is currently measured in narrowly-defined terms of disability – essentially those that permit the calculation of years lost to disability (YLDs). In reality, headache-related burden has far more dimensions than are captured in this way, and these need to be recognised. A system that may enable this, and promoted by the World Health Organization, is the International Classification of Functioning, Disease and Health (ICF).

Activities in this field

• Database for burden-of-headache studies
• Atlas of Headache Disorders
• Global Burden of Disease Study 2010
• Headache in the International Classification of Functioning, Disease and Health (ICF)
• Work impact