Pain Awareness Month ends today. Chronic pain does not.
That is the awkward thing about awareness months. For roughly a quarter of American adults, the awareness is not seasonal. It is Tuesday morning, and the following Tuesday, and the one after that.
So rather than a summary, three things worth carrying into October.
Pain is more common than we act like it is. 24.3% of US adults reported chronic pain in 2023; 8.5% reported pain that frequently limits daily life. Those numbers exceed diabetes, depression, and hypertension. Our collective response has not scaled to match.
Pain is not evenly distributed, and the reasons are not biological. Prevalence varies almost threefold across racial and ethnic groups, rises as urbanization falls, and more than doubles between the youngest and oldest adults. Those patterns track exposure, occupation, access, and history — things that can be changed.
“No cure” is not “nothing can be done.” The gap between those two phrases is where most of pain medicine lives, and where nearly all of pain research is aimed.
If you have followed along this month, the most useful thing you can do now is join the registry. It is how most people find their way into the studies that produce the evidence these posts are built from. The month ends; the work does not.
And it does not end quietly. On October 2, two days from now, is Pain Research Day — the UF pain community’s annual gathering, where the work described across these thirty days gets presented and argued about in one room. A campaign like this one is an explanation. Pain Research Day is the thing being explained.
It runs 8:30 to 6:00 on the third floor of the CTRB, 2004 Mowry Road. Registration is still open.
Our vision has not changed: to reduce pain-related suffering through excellence in research, treatment, and education.
Thank you for the attention. We will use it.
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
- PRICE Research Registry recruitment materials, UF Study ID IRB201400126. IRB-approved; supplied by site owner. https://is.gd/PRICE
- PRICE Pain Research Day. Friday, October 2, 2026, 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM, CTRB Third Floor, 2004 Mowry Road, Gainesville FL. Keynote: Alexandre F. DaSilva, DDS, DMedSc, University of Michigan. Official event flyer and announcement, UF College of Dentistry, 26 August 2026. https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=-KBNDTFKdk2s5gpiMx4bhExU3EN69V5Gq6IlbT6rtoVUMTZEUjk5WjlIQkhJVDJKWlBXSVc4TUo3OC4u&origin=QRCode