Lifting the Burden

A key component of the burden of headache – of enormous socioeconomic and therefore political importance – is the very substantial lost productivity among the workforce affected by headache.

Work impact studies are providing direct empirical evidence of this.

Later interventional studies may then show that effective treatment of headache actually does get people back to work, and recover at least some of this lost productivity.

Health policy-makers need this evidence – that provision of effective health care for headache reduces indirect costs – if they are to be persuaded to invest accordingly. However, at present, empirical evidence of this is wholly lacking outside the extremely limited context of clinical trials, in which gains from use of specific drugs have been small and unconvincing.

These studies require productivity assessments, interventions and outcome studies conducted in co-operation with major employers. Lifting The Burden has a helpful ongoing collaboration with Ford Otomotiv Sanayi AŞ in Gölcük, Kocaeli, Turkey.

People contributing to these activities
Next
Back
Back to main menu