Chronic pain is a critical public health issue, and one that deeply affects the lives of millions. Pain thwarts careers, burdens families, and inflicts physical and psychological damage.

What is Chronic Pain?

Chronic pain is pain that endures beyond the time tissue normally heals, lasting or longer than 3 to 6 months.
Chronic pain damages the health, life and quality of life of those who suffer.
Chronic pain is a large umbrella category that ranges in severity and stems from diverse diseases or injuries.
For example, chronic pain can be inflammatory or autoimmune based. It can be caused by damage or disease within the nervous system itself.

Why is Chronic Pain a Disease?

Acute pain serves a useful function, warning us that we need rest or seek care. Acute pain is a common response to injury or surgery. Chronic pain behaves like a disease by damaging the body rather than protecting or preserving it. Chronic pain negatively affects nearly every organ and system and can also shorten life expectancy.

How common is Chronic Pain?

Chronic pain affects more Americans than any other disease, more than cancer, heart disease, and diabetes combined.
Nearly 1 out of every 4 Americans experiences pain every day.
40 million Americans have severe pain, and 22 million have pain that regularly prevents them from working and engaging in basic life activities.
Chronic pain is the no. 1 cause of long-term disability.

Are clinicians educated in treating Chronic Pain?

Pain is a key feature of our most common diseases and one of the biggest reasons people seek medical care, but pain is poorly addressed in medical education.
Many clinicians receive only 9 hours of pain education. One study found only 4 US medical schools have a mandatory pain course.

Why is research on Chronic Pain important?

There is still so much we don’t understand about pain, including why it becomes chronic. New research, for example, found that different cells are involved in pain processing in male and female animals, which may help explain why women experience more chronic pain.

Existing treatments like opioids have been around for centuries and carry risks.

Research is critical, but even with money allocated by Congress to address pain and addiction in response to the overdose crisis, pain represents a tiny fraction of the budget of the National Institutes of Health.

How is Chronic Pain treated?

The best treatment for chronic pain often combines different therapies, like medications, physical and psychological therapies, surgeries or nerve blocks, and integrative care like acupuncture or massage.

Unfortunately, this multimodal or multidisciplinary type of care is not widely available and is poorly covered by insurers.

Far too many people with chronic pain suffer with little improvement and fail to receive effective pain care.

Who does chronic pain affect?

Chronic pain can affect anyone whether they are a child or an older adult.

Because pain is invisible and misunderstood, too many pain patients have their pain dismissed or disbelieved.

Some groups experience more pain or impediments to care than others. Recent CDC data suggest that women, people living in rural areas, and Alaska Natives and Indigenous peoples have higher rates of chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain.

High-impact chronic pain is pain that regularly interferes with work or daily life activities.

How does Chronic Pain affect the lives of those who suffer?

People with chronic pain may be isolated and unable to engage in life or work activities.
People living with chronic pain are also four times more likely to suffer from depression or anxiety, and have higher rates of suicide.

What are the economic costs of Chronic Pain?

Americans spend billions on treatments for pain that are often ineffective.
The cost to society, which ranges from direct healthcare costs to lost work, reaches more than $638 billion a year.

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