Messages to Raise Awareness
The two primary messages and their supporting arguments, which cannot be repeated too often, will form the core of all communications with all audiences:
Headache is common and disabling the world over:
- about half of all adults in the world have recent personal experience (in the last year) of a headache disorder;
- headache disorders are, collectively, the third highest cause of disability in the world;
- an estimated 20% of people worldwide have migraine;
- migraine alone is the cause of an estimated 400,000 lost days from work or school each year per million of the population in developed countries;
and:
Effective treatments for headache exist, but do not reach most people who need them:
- people with headache are unaware of these treatments;
- doctors and other health-care providers are insufficiently trained to offer them;
- governments do not support systems to provide them.
The overarching message is:
The Global Campaign against Headache is a response to these global health-care failures. Its purpose is to bring better health care to people with headache, thereby reducing the burden of headache worldwide.