A study examines how and why the link between age and physical pain is different in the United States compared with other wealthy countries. In wealthy countries, the fraction of people reporting physical pain typically rises with age. To examine the relationship between age and physical pain, Anne Case, Angus Deaton, and Arthur Stone used data from surveys conducted by Gallup, the US Census Bureau, and the European Union. With data spanning the period 2006-2018, the surveys included responses from more than 2.5 million adults aged 25-79 years and living in either the United States or one of 20 wealthy countries. In the United States, middle-aged individuals reported more pain than did elderly individuals; this counterintuitive finding was not observed elsewhere, where reported pain rose with age. However, upon separating people into those with and without tertiary education, pain peaked in middle age only for US-based individuals without a bachelor's degree. For this less-educated group, each birth cohort reported more pain throughout life than did previous birth cohorts. The latter finding explains why elderly individuals in the United States, who had been in less pain throughout their lives, reported less pain than those in midlife. The findings suggest that pain prevalence will continue to increase for less-educated adults in the United States, with important implications for healthcare, according to the authors.
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Article #20-12350: "Decoding the mystery of American pain reveals a warning for the future," by Anne Case, Angus Deaton, and Arthur A. Stone.
MEDIA CONTACT: Anne Case, Princeton University, NJ; tel: 609-375-6431; e-mail: accase@princeton.edu
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences