A quarter of Americans suffer from chronic pain
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Roughly a quarter of Americans say they suffer from chronic pain and nearly 1 in 10 say it's bad enough to regularly limit their life or work, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Why it matters: Chronic pain is the most common reason people seek medical care and beyond causing physical limitations can lead to increased anxiety and depression as well as opioid misuse.
What they found: Researchers asked more than 87,000 people how often they experienced pain in the last three months and found 24.3% reported "most days" or "every day."
- To get at how many people were experiencing what they called "high-impact chronic pain" the researchers asked how often people experienced pain that limited their life or work activities. A total of 8.5% said most or all days.
- The risk for chronic pain rose as people aged and was highest in rural areas.
- American Indian and Alaska Native adults were more likely to have chronic pain in the past three months (30.7%) compared with white (28%), Black (21.7%), Hispanic (17.1%) and Asian (11.8%) adults.
A 2019 CDC study found about 20% of Americans said they suffered from chronic pain and 7.4% suffered high-impact chronic pain.
