European Region
The former USSR is a priority because it is a very large area of the European Region, with, until now, little knowledge of headache burden. Population-based burden-of-headache studies have been completed in Russia and Georgia.
Interventional projects have been undertaken in both these countries.
In Georgia, a country formerly with no headache services, and a service infrastructure that does not enable interventions to be primary-care based, new specialist services have been set up, with the focus on sustainability.
The Russian health-care system better supports a 4-level service delivery model to reach all of the general public. More feasible may be employer-based services but, meanwhile, a service in the private sector is being developed as a stepping stone.
In Turkey, a nationwide school-based study of the burden of headache in children and adolescents has been completed, and is in analysis.
Lifting The Burden was a partner in the Eurolight project, an activity supported by the EC Public Health Executive Agency. It surveyed the impact of headache throughout Europe in order to inform policy-makers.
While Eurolight was essentially a regional initiative, it harvested information from people with headache in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. It showed the total annual cost of headache in the European Union to be €155 billion.