History of Migraine and Risk of COVID-19: A Cohort Study

Background Although studies have reported migraine and headache as common symptoms of COVID-19, little is known about the association between migraine and risk of developing COVID-19. Methods Prospective cohort study among 16,492 women enrolled in the Women's Health Study who completed a series of questionnaires in 2020 and 2021 concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. We defined history of migraine as reporting a physician diagnosis of migraine on any of the annual questionnaires from enrollment into the study (1992-1995) through the end of 2019. Individuals were classified as having had COVID-19 if they reported a positive test for SARS-CoV-2 or its antibodies, were told by a healthcare provider that they were probably or definitely diagnosed with COVID-19, or were hospitalized for COVID-19. We used logistic regression with inverse probability weighting to adjust for differences in the probability of being tested for SARS-CoV-2 and potential confounding. Results 4759 women (28.9%) reported any history of migraine through the end of 2019. One thousand two-hundred seventy-one women were classified as having COVID-19, including 394 cases among those with a history of migraine. We did not observe evidence of a strong or moderate association between history of migraine and the risk of having had COVID-19 (odds ratio (OR)=1.08, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.95, 1.22). Similar results were observed for migraine subtypes as well as for hospitalizations for COVID-19. Conclusions Older women with a history of migraine do not have an appreciable increase in the risk of developing COVID-19.