Pain Awareness Month – September 2026

Posted on by David Lister

Photo by Ilse Orsel on Unsplash

In 2001, the American Chronic Pain Association (ACPA) led a coalition of organizations to establish September as Pain Awareness Month. At the same time, they created a consortium of pain organizations called Partners for Understanding Pain, which “strives to create greater understanding among health care professionals, individuals and families who are struggling with pain management, the business community, legislators, and the general public that pain is a serious public health issue.”1 Eighty organizations, from health care professionals to consumer groups, including the NAACP, supported the effort to create the coalition. The full list of participating members can be found on the ACPA’s website: https://www.acpanow.com/pain-awareness.html#/. 

Twenty-five years later, chronic pain is highly persistent, with more new cases of chronic pain reported in the United States per year than new cases of hypertension, depression, or diabetes.2 As of September 2025, the U.S. Pain Foundation’s Chronic Pain Fact Sheet includes these staggering data points: 

  • 60 million American adults (24.3% of the population) live with chronic pain.3
  • 21 million American adults (8.5%) live with high-impact chronic pain, or pain that frequently limits life or work activities.4
  • Pediatric chronic pain estimates range from 11% to 38% of children under 18.5
  • There are 52.4 new cases of chronic pain per 1,000 people each year—a higher rate than that of several other common health conditions, including diabetes, depression, and high blood pressure.6
  • Pain is the number one reason Americans access the health care system.7
  • Chronic pain is the leading cause of long-term disability in the United States.8
  • Pain in America costs as much as $635 billion yearly in direct health care costs, lost productivity, and disability payments.9
  • About 83% of people with high-impact chronic pain are unable to work.10
  • People with chronic pain have at least twice the risk of suicide compared to those without chronic pain.11
  • Individuals with chronic pain receive an average of only 30% pain reduction from their various treatments.12
  • The National Institutes of Health dedicates approximately 2% of its funding to chronic pain and pain research (chronic, acute, and acute-to-chronic pain).13

The most significant data point to me is that the NIH only dedicates 2% of its funding to chronic pain research when pain is the number one reason Americans access healthcare, making Pain Awareness Month even more significant. There are a lot of great ways to get involved this month, including events to support advocacy, research, and collaboration among patients, providers, and the healthcare industry. Check out the lists below for participating organizations, events, and ways you can get involved, starting with the 20th annual PAINWeek sponsored by Informa in Las Vegas. 

EVENTS 

Event Date and Time Location 
PAINWeek by Informa September 8 – 12 Las Vegas, NV Register Here 
Congressional Briefing, “Advancing Chronic Pain Initiatives: Policy Priorities that Reach Patients” September 9, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. ET U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Washington D.C. RSVP Here  
Crafting Healing Narratives, a storytelling workshop September 9, 7:30 p.m. ET Register Here 
Protecting Disability Benefits After Approval: Understanding Routine Reviews September 10, 6:00 p.m. ET Register Here 
Protecting Disability Benefits After Approval: High-Risk Reviews and Investigations September 18, 1:00 p.m. ET Register Here 
Making Pain Research Easier to Understand: A Listening Session with the U.S. Association for the Study of Pain September 28, 1:00 pm ET Register Here 

PAIN ORGANIZATIONS AND OTHER WAYS TO GET INVOLVED 

Organization Details Get Involved 
U.S. Pain Foundation Their flagship campaign, #OneVoiceForPain, focuses on common challenges, needs, and priorities that connect people living with pain, framed around the following four pillars: All Ages, Countless Diagnoses, Millions of Stories, One Movement. Share your idea for a blog or feature to contact@uspainfoundation.org Sign up for advocacy alerts Attend virtual events (see above table) 
American Chronic Pain Association Checkout resources from the original founder of Pain Awareness Month, including the Partners for Understanding Pain Coalition Take the “Access to Care Pain Survey” to help improve research for chronic pain patients that needbetter access to care 
Spondyloarthritis Association of America Specific to the spondyloarthritiscommunity; promotes awareness about chronic pain related to autoimmune diseases Use their quick and easy email form to send a message to your legislators requesting support forbill S. 5041 for better access to chronic pain data (see Advocating for Chronic Pain Research for more details) 
International Association for the Study of Pain Check out their educational content and social outreach all month long Research and more on IASP-pain.org 

Copyright 2026 David Lister. All Rights Reserved. 

  1. American Chronic Pain Association. Pain Awareness. 2026. https://www.acpanow.com/pain-awareness.html#/ ↩︎
  2. Nahin RL, Feinberg T, Kapos FP, Terman GW. Estimated Rates of Incident and Persistent Chronic Pain Among US Adults, 2019-2020. JAMA Netw Open. 2023 May 1;6(5):e2313563. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.13563. PMID: 37191961; PMCID: PMC10189566. ↩︎
  3. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db518.htm ↩︎
  4. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db518.htm ↩︎
  5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7888311/ ↩︎
  6. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds-high-rates-persistent-chronic-pain-among-us-adults ↩︎
  7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9224345/ ↩︎
  8. https://obssr.od.nih.gov/about/bssr-accomplishments/chronic-pain ↩︎
  9. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22607834/ ↩︎
  10. https://www.nccih.nih.gov/research/research-results/prevalence-and-profile-of-high-impact-chronic-pain | https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/consequences-of-highimpact-chronic-pain ↩︎
  11. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16420727/ | https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M18-0830 ↩︎
  12. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK553030/
    ↩︎
  13. https://report.nih.gov/funding/categorical-spending#/ | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10239629/#cit000 ↩︎

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