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Last updated: Mon, Oct 21, 2024
In this section I give an overview of various common chronic pain conditions, presenting statistics on their prevalence along with a brief explanation of the pain mechanisms involved, plus some epidemiological findings about the people who suffer with these conditions. Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and causes of disease at the population level rather than the individual level.
An Internet-based questionnaire study of the U.S. published in 2010 reported that 30% of Americans reported chronic pain, which for the study was defined as pain lasting at least six months. A study of similar size and with a similar definition of “chronic” published in 2006 reported 20% with chronic pain among respondents from Europe and Israel.1 The American study showed that chronic pain is more common among the old than among the young and more common among women than among men. The prevalence (rate of occurrence) of chronic pain was about 10% among men aged 18-24 and increased to almost 35% among men aged 55-64. The prevalence among women was 5-10% higher at all ages.
The European/Israeli study provided a breakdown by area of body affected, shown in Figure 1.
| Region | Percent affected |
|---|---|
| Head | 15% |
| Neck | 8% |
| Upper back | 5% |
| Hip | 8% |
| Lower back | 18% |
| Shoulder | 9% |
| Hand | 6% |
| Leg | 14% |
| Knee | 16% |
| Back (unspecified) | 24% |
| Joints (unspecified) | 10% |
The most common chronic pain conditions are lower back pain, fibromyalgia and myofascial pain, neuropathic pains, and pain associated with cancer.2 This section will describe these varieties of chronic pain along with a few others.
Within this section...
Musculoskeletal Pain in General (Last updated: Sun, Jun 25, 2017)
Lower Back Pain (Last updated: Mon, Aug 12, 2024)
Fibromyalgia, Whiplash, and Myofascial Pain (+CWP) (Last updated: Mon, Aug 12, 2024)
Neuropathies (Last updated: Tue, Aug 13, 2024)
Pain Associated with Cancer (Last updated: Wed, Jun 28, 2017)
Other Pain Conditions (Last updated: Thu, Nov 17, 2022)
Or skip to...
Chronic Pain Physiology (Last updated: Thu, Feb 27, 2025)