Incidence and prevalence of headache comorbidities within veterans

Key messages

• Headache is common amongst veterans in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), with ‘headache not otherwise specified’ being the most common type, suggesting a need for physician headache diagnosis training.
• Pain and psychiatric comorbidity is extremely high, indicating high patient complexity and a need for interdisciplinary headache treatment.
• Although less than 1% of men and women were diagnosed with subtypes of headache, the total number affected was high, supporting the need for further research into covariates and rarer types of headache.
• There is a need to increase the capacity for treating veterans with headache as only 14% were treated in the VHA headache centers in the last fiscal year.