Migraine and Headache Disease Language Guide

Part of the fight to eliminate Migraine Stigma is addressing the condition with respectful and inclusive messaging.

Migraine Canada, in collaboration with Migraine Quebec, has created a Canadian Migraine Disease Language Guide to help people who communicate about headache diseases to do so in a more accurate, informed, and respectful manner.  These conditions, and the people living with them, deserve to be taken seriously. The guide has been developed with input from the stakeholder community including individuals living with migraine, clinicians, and global affiliates.

Respectful consideration should be given when choosing language and selecting images and photographs of people with headache diseases for use in publications, advertisements, marketing materials and websites. Images chosen should accurately depict what it’s like to live with these diseases and the range of how they impact people’s daily lives. Migraine and other headache conditions do not discriminate and therefore images used to portray these diseases should reflect diversity of age, race, ethnicity and gender.

Canadian Migraine Disease Language Guide

We’ve included a high-level summary of the “Preferred Language, Acceptable Language and Language to Avoid” below. We encourage you to download and print the summary to have on hand for general conversations.

If you have any questions please email [email protected]

Note: The French Version of this guide will be released asap. Please check back for an update.