Media release

From: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)

New report finds 1.7 million Australians are living with migraine

Around 2.2 million Australians were living with a long-term neurological condition in 2022 with migraine the most common – affecting 77% of people with a neurological condition.

Migraine disproportionately affects people of working age and females, with females more than twice as likely as males to be impacted.

Today the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has published Neurological conditions in Australia. This is the first time that data on the prevalence, health service use, disease burden and health system expenditure associated with neurological conditions has been compiled in one place.

‘Neurological conditions are diseases of the brain, spinal cord and nervous system, with more than 600 known types that vary widely in cause — though for some, the causes remain unknown,’ said AIHW spokesperson Richard Hurley.

‘Around 8.7% of Australians, or 1 in 11 people, were estimated to be living with a long-term neurological condition in 2022.’

Females were almost twice as likely as males to have a long-term neurological condition, which is equivalent to about 1 in 9 females and 1 in 16 males. This difference was largely due to migraine, which affected 9.2% of females compared with 4.1% of males.

There were almost 365,000 hospitalisations and over 132,000 emergency department (ED) presentations due to neurological conditions in 2023–24. This means that 29 out of every 1,000 hospitalisations and 15 out of every 1,000 ED presentations were due to neurological conditions.

Around 60% of Australians in permanent residential aged care had a neurological condition recorded as affecting their care.

An estimated $6.6 billion in health-system spending was attributed to neurological conditions, accounting for 3.6% of all disease-related costs. The costliest conditions were dementia ($1.6 billion), epilepsy ($760 million), multiple sclerosis ($675 million) and migraine ($593 million).

‘This report establishes the first reporting system aimed at monitoring neurological conditions in Australia, and is part of the actions undertaken to address the World Health Organisation’s intersectoral global action plan on epilepsy and other neurological conditions,’ Mr Hurley said.

‘It’s an important step in improving the outcomes for Australians living with neurological conditions, their families and their wider support network.’

Data development work is underway to address potential undercounting of neurological conditions, including the additional types of dementia not reflected in this report’s mortality and hospitalisations data. This work is anticipated to increase the total number of hospitalisations and deaths attributed to neurological conditions, improving the reporting system that this release establishes.  

Articles on 11 specific neurological conditions are also included in the Neurological conditions in Australia report, including:

• Cerebral palsy
• Epilepsy
• Functional neurological disorder
• Guillain-Barré syndrome
• Huntington’s disease
• Migraine and other headache disorders
• Motor neurone disease
• Multiple sclerosis
• Myalgicencephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome
• Myasthenia gravis
• Parkinson's disease