Newsletters
Women worldwide report more pain than men in every area of the body examined, and pain reports rise fastest before age 55, according to a study published in Nature Medicine.
Researchers analyzed data collected between 1990 and 2025 from more than 6 million people in 118 countries. Participants ranged from 5 to over 100 years old. The study assessed how pain is distributed worldwide and how it changes over a lifetime.
The analysis covered 11 body regions: head, face, neck or shoulder, foot or ankle, hand or wrist, elbow, chest, back, stomach or abdomen, hip and knee. Women reported higher pain rates than men in all of them. The gap between the sexes was most visible in head, face and abdominal pain.
Pain rates in both women and men rose rapidly before age 55 and reached their highest level at age 75 and older. Severe pain peaked around age 50, while pain felt across the whole body peaked around age 70.
Back pain was the most commonly reported type, with about 40% of participants reporting it. Face pain was the least common, at 2%.
The researchers calculated that 18.3% of the global pain burden is linked to smoking, obesity and low household income.
A preprint of the research describes pain as the leading cause of disability worldwide. It says the dataset combined 6.08 million participants from 894 population-based data sources.
The preprint states that women's risk of reporting pain was higher than men's at all 11 sites, with risk ratios ranging from 1.09 to 1.83.
According to the preprint, people in countries with the lowest Human Development Index scores reported nearly twice the late-life prevalence of any bodily pain compared with those in countries with the highest scores.
The share of pain burden tied to smoking, obesity and low income varied from 12.6% in sub-Saharan Africa to 27.1% in eastern Europe.
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
1 min read
