A recent landmark study published in the Lancet, a British journal, reveals that more than a quarter of Americans suffer daily from pain. This costs the United States approximately $60 billion a year in lost productivity. What is really telling about the study that the amount of pain people are in depends on how much they earn a year.
Americans in households making less than $30,000 a year spend nearly 20% of their lives in moderate to severe pain, compared with less than 8% of people in households earning above $100,000.
The study allegedly also revealed that those participants who hadn’t finished high school suffered from twice as much pain as college graduates. Krueger, one of the study authors, said:
“Those with higher incomes welcome pain almost by choice, usually through exercise. At lower incomes, pain comes as the result of work.”
Pain also appeared to be a major driver of healthcare costs. The study authors found that in 2004 (the most recent data available), Americans spent $2.6 billionin over-the-counter pain relievers and on top of that, $14 billion on outpatient analgesics.
The study also revealed that pain isn’t prejudice between men and women.
Leave a Reply