Nearly one in four American adults lives with chronic pain. In 2023, 24.3% of US adults reported chronic pain, and 8.5% reported pain severe enough to frequently limit their life or work activities.
Those are not small numbers. They describe roughly 60 million people whose ordinary week is organized around something most of us never have to think about.
September is Pain Awareness Month. For the Pain Research & Intervention Center of Excellence, it is a month to do something we do not do often enough: explain, in plain language, what we actually know about pain, what we are still working on, and how people can be part of that work.
Across the month we will publish something every day. Some of it is research findings. Some of it is myth-busting. Some of it is introducing the people at UF who spend their careers on this problem.
This year’s national campaign, led by the U.S. Pain Foundation, is built around a single idea: #OneVoiceForPain. All ages. Countless diagnoses. Millions of stories. One movement. We have organized our four weeks around those same themes, because they map remarkably well onto what PRICE actually studies.
Our vision has not changed since the center was founded: to reduce pain-related suffering through excellence in research, treatment, and education.
If you take one action this month, make it this one — join our research registry. It takes a few minutes, it commits you to nothing, and it is how most people find their way into the studies that move this field forward.
What we study:
- Pain and Aging
- Chronic Pain Risk Factors
- Pain and the Brain
- Musculoskeletal Pain
- Pain and Exercise
- Non-Medical Treatment of Pain
Prefer to talk to a person? Call 352-273-5967 or email PRICE-CTSI@ufl.edu.
UF Study ID IRB201400126
References
- Lucas JW, Sohi I. Chronic Pain and High-impact Chronic Pain in U.S. Adults, 2023. NCHS Data Brief No. 518. National Center for Health Statistics; November 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db518.htm
- U.S. Pain Foundation. Pain Awareness Month 2026: #OneVoiceForPain. https://uspainfoundation.org/painawarenessmonth/
- PRICE Research Registry recruitment materials, UF Study ID IRB201400126. IRB-approved; supplied by site owner. https://is.gd/PRICE