Chronic pain: An epidemic in America

Chronic pain is a significant public health problem in the United States. It reduces quality of life and is, in part, responsible for the opioid epidemic the nation currently faces. Last May, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services hosted “Implementation of the National Pain Strategy (NPS) Listening Session,” where they outlined how practitioners and others can begin to address chronic pain…