One-fifth of Americans experience chronic pain, which illustrates the national need for pain management, according Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the CDC.
Here are three things to know:
1. The CDC analyzed data from the 2016 National Health Interview Survey, which includes responses from 17,000 in-person interviews on the following questions:
- In the past six months, how often did you have pain?
- Would you say, never, some days, most days, or every day?
- Over the past six months, how often did pain limit your life or work activities
2. About 20 percent of U.S. adults (50 million people) had chronic pain in 2016, and 8 percent of U.S. adults (19.6 million people) had high-impact chronic pain, according to CDC estimates.
3. Both chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain were reported at higher rates among women, older adults, adults living in poverty, adults with public health insurance and rural residents.