Chronic pain affects 20% of Americans, CDC reports



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Chronic pain affected about 20% of US adults in 2016 and chronic high-impact pain – severe enough to interfere with life or work activities almost every day – affected 8%, according to the CDC.

This translates into 50 million people suffering from chronic pain and about 20 million people suffering from chronic high-impact pain, reported James Dahlhamer, PhD, of CDC's Division of Health Interview Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, and his colleagues . Weekly report on morbidity and mortality.

This is the first CDC assessment of high impact chronic pain. Population-based estimates of chronic pain among Americans ranged from 11% to 40%, with significant differences between different segments of the population.

Chronic pain contributes to direct medical costs, lost productivity, and disability programs, estimated at $ 560 billion a year. In 2016, the National Pain Strategy, the first national population health plan for the prevention, treatment and management of pain, called for more specific estimates to establish the prevalence of chronic pain and guide interventions. painkiller on the scale of the population.

In response, CDC researchers analyzed data from 33,028 adults in the 2016 national survey of health interviews, a cross-sectional household survey. They defined chronic pain as a pain almost every day or every day in the last six months, and high-impact chronic pain as chronic pain that restricted life or work activities almost daily or daily to during the last six months.

The analysis showed that in 2016, about 20.4% of American adults (50 million) had chronic pain and 8.0% (19.6 million) had chronic pain with high impact, with an increasing prevalence related to age.

The age-adjusted prevalence of chronic pain and chronic high-impact pain was significantly higher among women and adults who had previously worked but were not currently working, adults living in poverty or nearby and rural residents. It was significantly lower among those with at least a bachelor's degree compared to other levels of education.

This analysis is limited by self-reported data that may be subject to recall bias, the researchers noted. The data is cross-sectional, so causal inferences can not be made. This can be particularly important for socio-economic status, which can be both a risk factor and a consequence of chronic pain.

Dahlhamer did not report any conflict. Other authors have reported relationships with Pain medication newspaper, Pfizer and inVentive.

1969-12-31T19: 00: 00-0500

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