Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate power headroom management in a wireless communication system. As described herein, a predefined relationship between locations along a system frequency band and corresponding power backoff parameters is utilized to minimize spurious emissions outside the system frequency band and/or excessive interference by, for example, associating locations near one or more edges of the permitted frequency band with substantially high power backoff parameters. As further described herein, the predefined relationship can be known a priori to the base station and the mobile terminal.