The prevalence and burden of headache in Russia are currently unknown. Russia is, therefore, a high priority country in Lifting The Burden's stage one: acquiring "knowledge for action" prior to proposals for the development of potential headache services.

Plans have been laid for a full population-based survey sampling urban and rural populations in 21 of the 22 areas of Russia. Prior to this, however, is the need to validate a questionnaire for use in the study and confirm the appropriateness of the interview procedure.

A pilot is now underway in Smolensk to test the methodology of door-to-door interviews driven by the questionnaire. Interviewers are non-medical but with experience in population health surveys. In the pilot, 100 respondents will be interviewed to note any difficulties in applying the questionnaire.

All respondents reporting a headache disorder unrelated to a cold, 'flu, hangover or head injury will be interviewed again by a local headache expert, who will be unaware of the questionnaire responses. The expert's diagnoses will be taken as the gold standard against which the sensitivities and specificities of the questionnaire diagnoses will be assessed. The results of the pilot will be reported in a future issue of LTB News.