Prevalence and burden of migraine in the United States: A systematic review

This study reviewed migraine prevalence and disability gathered through epidemiologic survey studies in the United States conducted over the past three decades. We summarized these studies and evaluated changing patterns of disease prevalence and disability.

We conducted a systematic review of US studies addressing the prevalence, disability, and/or burden of migraine, including both episodic migraine (EM) and chronic migraine (CM). A Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol was used in conjunction with the PubMed search engine. Eligible studies were published before February 2022, were conducted in the United States, included representative samples, and used a case definition of migraine based on the International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD). The primary measure of disease burden was the Migraine Disability Assessment Scale (MIDAS). The MIDAS measures days lost due to migraine over 3 months in three domains and defines groups with moderate (Grade III) or severe disability (Grade IV) using cut-scores.

Of the 1609 identified records, 26 publications from 11 US population-based studies met eligibility criteria. The prevalence of migraine in the population has remained relatively consistent for the past 30 years: ranging from 11.7% to 14.7% overall, 17.1% to 19.2% in women, and 5.6% to 7.2% in men in the studies reviewed. CM prevalence is 0.91% (1.3% among women and 0.5% of men) in adults and 0.8% in adolescents. The proportion of people with migraine and moderate-to-severe MIDAS disability (Grades III-IV), has trended upward across studies from 22.0% in 2005 to 39.0% in 2012, to 43.2% in 2016, and 42.4% in 2018. A consistently higher proportion of women were assigned MIDAS Grades III/IV relative to men.

The prevalence of migraine in the United States has remained stable over the past three decades while migraine-related disability has increased. The disability trend could reflect changes in reporting, study methodology, social and societal changes, or changes in exacerbating or remediating factors that make migraine more disabling, among other hypotheses. These issues merit further investigation.