New Report Finds Pain Affects Millions of Americans

Many Americans suffer from pain on an ongoing basis, something that won't be too surprising to massage therapists. One in four U.S. adults say they suffered a day-long bout of pain in the past month, and one in 10 say the pain lasted a year or more. These statistics are part of the government's annual, comprehensive report of Americans' health, Health United States, 2006, released Nov. 15 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics.

Low-back pain is among the most common complaints, along with migraine or severe headache, and joint pain, aching or stiffness. The knee is the joint that causes the most pain, according to the report.

"We chose to focus on pain in this report because it is rarely discussed as a condition in and of itself—it is mostly viewed as a byproduct of another condition," said lead study author Amy Bernstein in a CDC press release. "We also chose this topic because the associated costs of pain are posing a great burden on the health-care system, and because there are great disparities among different population groups in terms of who suffer from pain."

Some of the other pain statistics include:

• One-fifth of adults 65 years and older said they had experienced pain in the past month that persisted for more than 24 hours.
• Almost three-fifths of adults 65 and older with pain said it had lasted for one year or more.
• More than one-quarter of adults interviewed said they had experienced low back pain in the past three months.
• Fifteen percent of adults experienced migraine or severe headache in the past three months. Adults ages 18-44 were almost three times as likely as adults 65 and older to report migraines or severe headaches.
• Reports of severe joint pain increased with age, and women reported severely painful joints more often than men (10 percent versus 7 percent).
• Between the periods 1988-94 and 1999-2002, the percentage of adults who took a narcotic drug to alleviate pain in the past month rose from 3.2 percent to 4.2 percent.

Health United States, 2006 is available at www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus.htm.