Along with Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, September is also National Pain Awareness month. During September, pain professionals and activists work hard to raise awareness about chronic pain and the people who it directly impacts.
Understanding more about chronic pain can do so much! Raising awareness for chronic pain can:
- Help people who experience chronic pain find treatments and therapy.
- Bring together people who experience pain, so they have more peer support.
- Educate healthcare professionals who are not chronic pain experts.
- Improve funding for chronic pain research and treatment.
- Educate family, friends, and coworkers of people with chronic pain.
- Raise political awareness for policy makers and politicians.
Quick facts about chronic pain
- Over 20% of the U.S. adult population experience chronic pain.1
- Chronic pain is the number one cause of adult disability in the U.S.2
- 45% of people with chronic pain say that it has a negative impact on their relationships.2
- 51% of people with chronic pain say it has a negative impact on their employment.2
- 61% of people with chronic pain say it has a negative impact on their daily routine.2
- Men and women have equal frequency of chronic pain.2
- Chronic pain costs American society more than $600 billion per year.3
- At least 10% of all suicide cases in the U.S. involve chronic pain.3
- Minority groups and other marginalized populations are at risk of receiving suboptimal pain management.3
- The National Institute of Health dedicates only 2% of its funding to pain research.3
Chronic pain is defined as pain that lasts longer than six months and impacts how a person lives their daily lives.
