New
Report Finds Pain Affects Millions of Americans
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Contact: CDC
National Center for Health Statistics Press Office
(301) 458-4800
E-mail: paoquery@cdc.gov
Health, United
States, 2006, With Chartbook on Trends in the Health of Americans
With Special Feature on Pain. 559 pp. (PHS) 2006-1232. GPO
stock number is
017-022-01602-8.
This report may be purchased from the Government Printing Office Health, United States, 2006,
Home page
One in four U.S. adults
say they suffered a day-long bout of pain in the past month, and 1 in 10
say the pain lasted a year or more, according to the government’s annual,
comprehensive report of Americans’ health, Health United States, 2006,
released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC)
National Center for Health Statistics.
“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. “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.”
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. Hospitalization rates for knee replacement
procedures rose nearly 90 percent between 1992-1993 and 2003-2004 among those 65
and older.
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 1
year or more.
More
than one-quarter of adults interviewed said they had experienced low back
pain in the past 3 months.
Fifteen
percent of adults experienced migraine or severe headache in the past 3
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 1988-1994 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.
The report also finds
that the United States spent an average of $6,280 per person on health care
in 2004. Seven percent of adults under 65 said they passed up getting needed
care in the past 12 months due to costs.
The report also notes a
number of other significant health findings:
Life
expectancy at birth reached a record 77.9 years in 2004, up from 77.5 in
2003 and from 75.4 in 1990. Since 1990, the gap in life expectancy between
men and women has narrowed from 7 to just over 5 (5.2) years. At
birth, life expectancy for females is just over 80 years and nearly 75 for
males. The gap in life expectancy between white and black Americans also has
narrowed from 7 years in 1990 to 5 years in 2004.
Infant
mortality fell to 6.8 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2004, down from 6.9
deaths per 1,000 live births in 2003.
Heart
disease remains the leading killer, but deaths from heart disease fell 16
percent between 2000 and 2004, and deaths from cancer – the No. 2 killer –
dropped 8 percent. The age-adjusted death rate for heart disease was 217
deaths per 100,000 in 2004; for cancer the rate was 186 per 100,000.
Diabetes
poses a growing threat, especially among older adults. Eleven percent of
adults aged 40-59 years, and 23 percent of those 60 and older have diabetes.