Policy Changes Needed to Improve Migraine Care and Access to Treatments: Julienne Verdi

WATCH TIME: 7 minutes

"There’s a lot of work to be done. Where do these problems arise? I’d say from a lack of appreciation for the seriousness of headache disorder. So often these conditions are just dismissed as just a headache, and we know there’s much more than that."

Migraine remains one of the world’s most common health conditions and its most common neurological disease. Roughly 40 million people in the US and 1 billion people worldwide have migraine, making it the third most common illness in the world. Women face a much higher risk of experiencing migraines than men; although, the reasons for this are not fully understood.

Headache on the Hill is an annual event in Washington, D.C., put on by the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy (AHDA) that offers volunteer advocates to bring forth major topics of concern in the headache community. It remains the only annual advocacy day exclusively dedicated for advocating for equitable federal policies for those with headache disorders. This year’s meeting, which was held on February 14, was the largest and most diverse cohort of advocates to date, with nearly 300 advocates from 49 states attending.

To learn more about the legislative requests brought up this year’s Headache on the Hill, NeurologyLive^® sat down with Julienne Verdi, executive director of AHDA. Verdi, a lawyer, highlighted the 3 main asks the organization presented, the first of which dealt with establishing a Congressional Caucus for Headache Disorders. Additionally, she provided perspective on the need to expand services for children with migraine and other severe headache disorders, as well as the reasons for the reintroduction of the Care for Long COVID ACT.