Lifting the Burden will:
- develop sound evidence to underpin the humanitarian and socioeconomic arguments that headache should be high amongst priorities for health care, and use these to persuade local health-care policy-makers. WHO, WHA, IHS and EHF are establishing an observatory of headache throughout the world. Adding to the data on migraine compiled by WHO for the World Health Report 2001, a complete review of all the epidemiological evidence will produce a headache map of the world. Where there are gaps in our knowledge, particularly in developing countries studies will be set up to fill them.
- seek local solutions to the problem as it exists in each region, having regard for cultural and economic realities in different countries. Priorities will be set not simply by identifying the areas with greatest need but also by considering where action can achieve the greatest benefit. Integrated policy and service development will come from within each community, building upon locally available knowledge and resources. Educational programs will take advantage of those already provided by IHS, EHF and their member societies for health-care providers and by WHA and their member organizations for people directly affected by headache disorders and the general public. These programs will advocate against stigma and discrimination which isolates headache sufferers.
- prove its case. Regionally-implemented demonstrational projects will test proposed solutions, evaluating their effect in terms of reductions in the measurable population burden attributable to headache disorders while assessing the cost of putting them in place.
Hundreds of millions of people . . . Congratulations and kudos to Lifting the Burden; the WHO, WHA, IHS, EHF; the individuals who have worked so hard to launch this laudable campaign; and everyone else involved with it.
