An introduction to the basic principles of health economics for those involved in the development and delivery of headache care.

Against a background of increasing demands on limited resources, health economics is gaining an increasing impact on decision making and a basic understanding of the subject is important for all those involved in headache research and service delivery at whatever level. This paper is not intended as a review of the literature in the area of headache economics but discusses some general principles of health economics from the perspective of headache, with a focus on cost of illness studies and economic evaluation.