Background Migraine is the leading cause of days lost due to disability in the world among people less than 50 years of age. There is a paucity of evidence on the impact of migraine and other headache disorders and the cost and productivity losses in the workplace. Methods Employee population survey assessed prevalence, characteristics, and disability of headache disorders at a Japanese information technology company. This study was supported by the World Health Organization Western Pacific Region Office and International Headache Society. Results 2458 (1963men, 495 women) out of 2494 responded to the survey that utilized ICHD-3 beta criteria. Among these, 13% (205 male/123 female) had migraine (M), 53% (1093 male/207 female) had tension-type headache (TTH) and 4% (61 male/27 female) had migraine and TTH (M/TTH). The number of days when productivity at work was reduced by half or more because of headache was significantly higher in migraine compared to TTH. The norm-based scoring of SF-12v2 was significantly lower in M/TTH and M than TTH. The economic loss due to absenteeism for migraine was calculated to be $ 238.3US$/year/person for day-off and 90.2US$/year/person for half-day off using migraine disability assessment score (MIDAS). The economic loss due to presenteeism for migraine was calculated to be $ 375.4US$/year/person using MIDAS and 2217US$/year/person using work productivity and activity impairment questionnaire (WPAI). Furthermore, estimated cost of productivity loss associated with presenteeism using WPAI was calculated at 21.3 billion US$/year in Japan as a whole. Conclusions This study revealed a high prevalence and disease burden among employees with migraine that is associated with substantial losses in productivity and employer cost. These results support the development and implementation of workplace programs to improve migraine management in the workplace and reduce the burden and costs associated with lost workplace productivity.

Background Migraine is a highly prevalent, disabling, misunderstood, underdiagnosed, and undertreated neurological disease. It is a leading cause of productivity loss in the workplace. Methods This is the first large-scale company-wide headache education and evaluation program in the workplace. Results 73,432 (90.5%) Fujitsu employees participated. The prevalence of migraine was 16.7%, tension-type headache 40.7%, and cluster headache 0.5%. After completing the training, 82.9% of participants without headache said they would change their attitude towards colleagues with headache disorders and 72.5% of total participants said their understanding of headache changed. The proportion of employees who thought that headache had a significant impact on people’s lives increased from 46.8% to 70.6%; 2971 (4.1%) of all participants were interested in a virtual consultation with a headache specialist as part of the program, more than half of whom had not previously consulted for headache. Approximately 14.7 days per year of full productivity per employee with headache were gained resulting in an annual productivity saving per employee of US$4531. Conclusion This unique headache workplace program was associated with a high level of participation, an improvement in the understanding of migraine and attitude towards colleagues with migraine, reduction in disability and increased employee productivity, and decreased costs of lost productivity due to migraine. Workplace programs for migraine should be considered for all industry sectors.

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We have defined the perception of one's own age as "subjective age", and have so far approached using other people's facial images. In this paper, we propose a relative estimation method for subjective age by using people's speech sounds and their chronological age. A relative estimation task is performed, wherein an estimator gives rating values to other people about whether they are older or younger than the estimator. In this task, the difference in the actual age between the estimator and the rating value of the person are measured. We plot the results on a two-dimensional plane with the x-axis as the relative age and the y-axis is the estimation result. Thus, the distribution with the plotted points of upper-right direction is obtained, which is approximated by a logistic function. The zero crossing point in the approximation curve with the x-axis is defined as the shift value in the subjective age. 57 total estimators, including 28 males and 29 females from 25 to 44 years old participated in this experiment. As a result, the subjective age using speech sounds tended to be older than using facial images. The tendency was also more remarkably visible in the male groups than in the female group. However, variance was relatively higher in the male young-middle (35-44) and the female young (25-34) groups than using facial images, which indicated that the subjective age varies according to the profile of estimators, such as age and gender.

Abstract-We have proposed a method for estimating the subjective age of a person; that is, a method that yields a person's age on the basis of estimations made by that person about the age of other people by observing their facial images. Thus far, experiments have shown that Japanese people tend to underestimate their subjective age. In this study, we focus on the socio-psychological effects that may influence the underestimation of subjective age. We conducted an international comparative study. In this study, experiments were performed in which American and Japanese participants viewed American facial images; in addition, the American participants also viewed Japanese facial images. Through these experiments, it was confirmed that the subjective age generally tended toward the negative direction despite differences in the nationalities and cultures of the Japanese and American participants and their facial images. Moreover, it was found that nationality and culture may have some effects on the estimation; for example, American males did not exhibit the tendency to underestimate the age, unlike Japanese male. When estimating facial images of different nationalities, the variance generally tended to be larger, although the average was similar. This study suggests that the underestimation of age occurs despite differences in Japanese and American societies and cultures; however, the tendency of underestimation of age is not related to facial images but to social and cultural factors that influence the participants.