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The Experience of BIPOC Living with Chronic Pain in the USA: Biopsychosocial Factors that Underlie Racial Disparities in Pain Outcomes, Comorbidities, Inequities, and Barriers to Treatment

  • Psychological and Behavioral Aspects of Headache and Pain (D Buse, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

This review synthesizes recent findings related to the biopsychosocial processes that underlie racial disparities in chronic pain, while highlighting opportunities for interventions to reduce disparities in pain treatment among BIPOC.

Recent Findings

Chronic pain is a prevalent and costly public health concern that disproportionately burdens Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). This unequal burden arises from an interplay among biological, psychological, and social factors.

Summary

Social determinants of health (e.g., income, education level, and lack of access or inability to utilize healthcare services) are known to affect overall health, including chronic pain, and disproportionately affect BIPOC communities. This burden is exacerbated by exposure to psychosocial stressors (i.e., perceived injustice, discrimination, and race-based traumatic stress) and can affect biological systems that modulate pain (i.e., inflammation and pain epigenetics). Further, there are racial/ethnic disparities in pain treatment, perpetuating the cycle of undermanaged chronic pain among BIPOC.

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Funding

This investigation was supported by K23AR077088 (Meints, PI) and R35 GM128691 (R35-Restricted Administrative Supplement Schreiber (PI), Overstreet (co-I)).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Brigham and Woman’s Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA, 02411, USA

    Demario S. Overstreet, Bethany D. Pester, Jenna M. Wilson, K. Mikayla Flowers, Nora K. Kline & Samantha M. Meints

  2. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Demario S. Overstreet, Bethany D. Pester, Jenna M. Wilson, K. Mikayla Flowers & Samantha M. Meints

  3. Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA

    Nora K. Kline

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  1. Demario S. Overstreet
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Overstreet, D.S., Pester, B.D., Wilson, J.M. et al. The Experience of BIPOC Living with Chronic Pain in the USA: Biopsychosocial Factors that Underlie Racial Disparities in Pain Outcomes, Comorbidities, Inequities, and Barriers to Treatment. Curr Pain Headache Rep 27, 1–10 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-022-01098-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-022-01098-8

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