Health Union to Present Poster at 2021 Annual Meeting of American Academy of Pain Medicine

Research finds people with lower income more likely to experience healthcare provider bias, stigma related to chronic pain management

News provided by

Health Union

Apr 22, 2021, 11:37 ET

PHILADELPHIA, April 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Health Union has been accepted to present research about how the income of people living with chronic pain can impact their relationships with healthcare providers (HCP) and, as a result, their condition management at the 2021 American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM) Annual Meeting. The research, in the form of a poster presentation titled "Impact of Income on Healthcare Provider Experience for People with Chronic Pain," will be available throughout the conference, which runs April 23-25.

Tapping into the complexities of chronic pain management and challenging healthcare system interactions illuminated by the opioid epidemic, this research sought to better understand how patient income relates to pain management access and experiences. To do this, Health Union partnered with the U.S. Pain Foundation to conduct a survey of 4,725 patients living with chronic pain.

Survey findings revealed that, of the 85% of respondents who regularly see HCPs to manage their pain, 53% have an annual household income less than $55,000. Those patients were more likely than respondents with higher incomes to:

Indicate their HCPs would not prescribe them pain medication,
Report being made to feel like drug seekers by their doctors, and
Avoid asking their HCPs for pain medication for fear of being treated like drug seekers.

The authors for the poster presentation are Health Union's Graceann Palmarella, MPH, director of community development; Brian Green, MS, vice president of community business solutions; and Kaitlyn McNamara, associate director of insights operations.

This research is one of more than 150 poster abstracts that will be featured on-demand throughout the duration of the virtual meeting.

AAPM's 37th Annual Meeting, which is themed "Effective Pain Care is Multimodal," will bring together specialists of varying modalities and disciplines to address evidence-based, innovative best practices around pain management that treat the whole patient through multimodal and multidisciplinary approaches. It will be held virtually April 23-25.

About Health Union
Since 2010, Health Union has encouraged social interactions that evolve into valuable online health conversations, helping people with chronic conditions find the information, connection, and validation they seek. The company creates condition-specific online communities – publishing original, daily content and continuously cultivating social conversation – to support, educate and connect millions of people with challenging, chronic health concerns. Today, the Health Union family of brands includes 31 online health communities, including LungCancer.net, ParkinsonsDisease.net, MultipleSclerosis.net and Migraine.com.

SOURCE Health Union