Why is the Global Disease Burden of Chronic Pain Underestimated?
Many conditions identified by the WHO as causing the greatest global disease burden in fact do so through acute or chronic pain. These include depression, trauma such as falls or motor vehicle accidents, and osteoarthritis. A 14-nation WHO study reaffirmed the overlap between persistent pain and psychological disorders such as depression. This same study found that about one in ten people develop a chronic pain condition every year. Conditions often known to be painful especially cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, sickle disease and leprosy are now recognized to be widely under-diagnosed and under-documented. Pain in such conditions is known to be widely under-assesed and under-treated even in the most advanced countries. Data on pain in many conditions has not even been sought until recently. Medical myths fostered views that infants do not experience pain, that pain is inevitable and so its treatment is futile in the elderly, or that third-degree burns do not hurt. Careful observations have
