More Than 50 Percent of People Worldwide Have Headache Disorders Erin Blakemore - Washington Post
go to original May 9, 2022

52% of the World's Population Impacted by Headache Disorders: Study (TODAY)

Migraines, sinus headaches, tension pain. Sound familiar? Almost everyone has experienced a headache at some point in their life.

New research quantifies how many people worldwide have headache disorders — and it’s a lot.

When a group of researchers trawled through over 350 scientific publications on headaches, they found that 52 percent of people worldwide have experienced a headache disorder in the past year.

Headache disorders range from annoying to disabling. They include migraines, tension headaches, cluster headaches and headaches related to things like exercise or sinusitis.

The researchers estimate that on any given day, 15.8 percent of people worldwide have a headache.

Deciding which studies to include was no small task. The scientists carefully refined their criteria, but they found that many published studies on headache disorders “were deficient in their reporting” despite ongoing attempts to standardize methodologies.

The data revealed differences in headache disorders by criteria like gender and geographic area. Females had more headaches than males — 57.8 percent compared to 44.4 percent. While 8.6 percent of males reported migraines, 17 percent of females had the disorder. High-income countries reported more headaches than low-income countries.

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Related: How to Prevent and Treat Headaches (Washington Post)