Published Jan 17, 2013

Chapel Hill, NC, USA - Chronic migraine, a condition characterized by 15+ headache days per month, is costly for employers and costs increase rapidly with age according to a new study. Compared to the more common, but less disabling, episodic migraine, this most severe form of migraine has been relatively neglected despite the fact that it afflicts more than 3 million Americans. The study analyzed data from more than 6000 people with migraine within the American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention Study (AMPP), including 374 participants with chronic migraine. At age 25, lost productive time for people with chronic migraine averaged 5.5 hours per week. Study lead author, Daniel Serrano, Ph.D. noted that “By age 64, lost productive time nearly triples reaching almost 14 hours per week. We are astonished to find that older adults with chronic migraine lose the equivalent of nearly two days per week of productivity”. These hours of lost productivity are costly for employers. For employed men between the ages of 45 and 54, the annualized cost of lost productivity averaged $4,004 for episodic migraine and $13,847 for chronic migraine. Likewise, for women between 45 and 54, costs were higher for CM than EM migraine ($6,844 vs. $2,347). “Because the employer costs per individual with chronic migraine are high and because effective treatments are available, employers should consider workplace programs targeting chronic migraine.” noted study co-author Richard B. Lipton, MD. The paper, “Cost and Predictors of Lost Productive Time in Chronic Migraine and Episodic Migraine: Results from the American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention (AMPP) Study” is published in Value in Health, the official journal of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR). The American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention Study is funded through a research grant to the National Headache Foundation from Ortho-McNeil Neurologics, Inc., Titusville, NJ. Data analyses and manuscript preparation were provided by Vedanta Research (Chapel Hill, NC) with grant support from Allergan Inc (Irvine, CA) to the National Headache Foundation. To learn more about CM, visit NHF at www.headaches.org.

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