Globally, Headache Disorders Affected 2.9 Billion People in 2023

THURSDAY, Nov. 20, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- In 2023, headache disorders affected 2.9 billion people, with prevalence rates remaining stable the past three decades, according to a study published online Nov. 12 in The Lancet Neurology.Andreas Kattem Husøy, Ph.D., from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, and colleagues extracted data on the prevalence, incidence, or remission of migraine, tension-type headache, and medication-overuse headache from published population-based studies. By meta-analyzing individual participant data from 41,653 individuals from the general populations of 18 countries, age- and sex-specific estimates of time in symptomatic state were applied.The researchers found that 2.9 billion individuals were affected by headache disorders in 2023, with a global age-standardized prevalence of 34.6 percent and a rate of years lived with disability (YLD) of 541.9 per 100,000 population; 487.5 per 100,000 population were attributed to migraine. During the past three decades, the prevalence rates of these headache disorders remained stable. Compared with males, females had YLD rates due to headache disorders that were twice as high (739.9 versus 346.1 per 100,000, respectively). Medication-overuse headache contributed 58.9 and 56.1 percent of the YLD estimates for tension-type headache in males and females, respectively, and 22.6 and 14.1 percent of the YLD estimates for migraines in males and females, respectively."Our findings show that a large part of the global headache burden is preventable," Husøy said in a statement. "Integrating headache services into primary care, especially in low- and middle-income countries where effective treatments remain scarce, could reduce lost productivity and improve quality of life for hundreds of millions."Several authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.Abstract/Full Text.Sign up for our weekly HealthDay newsletter

Globally, Headache Disorders Affected 2.9 Billion People in 2023

Related Stories