Headache education by leaflet distribution during COVID‐19 vaccination and school‐based on‐demand e‐learning: Itoigawa Geopark Headache Awareness Campaign

Objective We prospectively performed the Itoigawa Headache Awareness Campaign from August 2021 to June 2022, with two main interventions, and evaluated its effectiveness. Background Headache is a common public health problem, but its burden could be reduced by raising awareness about headache and the appropriate use of acute and prophylactic medication. However, few studies on raising headache awareness in the general public have been reported. Methods The target group was the general public aged 15–64. We performed two main interventions synergistically supported by other small interventions. Intervention 1 included leaflet distribution and a paper‐based questionnaire about headache during COVID‐19 vaccination, and intervention 2 included on‐demand e‐learning and online survey through schools. In these interventions, we emphasize the six important topics for the general public that were described in the Clinical Practice Guideline for Headache Disorders 2021. Each response among the two interventions’ cohorts was collected on pre and post occasions. The awareness of the six topics before and after the campaign was evaluated. Results We obtained 4016 valid responses from 6382 individuals who underwent vaccination in intervention 1 and 2577 from 594 students and 1983 parents in intervention 2; thus, 6593 of 20,458 (32.2%) of the overall working‐age population in Itoigawa city experienced these interventions. The percentage of individuals’ aware of the six topics significantly increased after the two main interventions ranging from 6.6% (39/594)–40.0% (1606/4016) to 64.1% (381/594)–92.6% (1836/1983) (p