Poorer Kids at Higher Migraine Risk

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This study involved more than 18,700 adolescents and their parents. Adolescents filled out a headache questionnaire, and all individuals in the household were interviewed.

Of this group, 1,178 adolescents had migraines, or 6.3 percent over the course of a year.

Migraines were more prevalent in girls, and in Caucasians versus African Americans.

Headaches were also more common in families with an annual income below $22,500. For adolescents in this low-income group whose parents did not suffer migraines, the prevalence was 4.4 percent, versus only 2.9 percent in families earning $90,000 or more.

In adolescents whose parents did suffer migraines, the prevalence was roughly the same (8.6 percent in the higher income group and 8.4 percent for the lower income group).

All this suggests that "if you have a high biological predisposition [for migraine], income and stress don't matter," Bigal said. But for people without a biological predisposition to the headaches, "chances are you are not going to develop migraine unless you have a lot of influence of environment. In the lowest predisposition group, social causation is right," he said.

That being said, this study opens the door to conducting non-pharmacological studies to see if strategies such as treating depression, finding nutritional risk factors, or other interventions might be effective in preventing migraine, Bigal said.

The whole issue of childhood and adolescent migraines is under-recognized, Stewart-Foulks pointed out.

"A lot of people do not realize that teenagers and children can have migraines," she said. "I think there needs to be more education for parents and healthcare providers."

More information

There's more on pediatric migraine at the American Headache Society.