Chronic pain affects millions of adults in the United States. It is the leading cause of disability and significantly impacts physical and mental functioning and quality of life. Chronic pain is often defined as pain lasting 3 months or longer or persisting past the normal time for tissue healing.
HHS is committed to the promotion of evidence-based approaches to safe and appropriate treatment of chronic pain.
The AHRQ Evidence-based Practice Center Program, on request from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has conducted a comprehensive synthesis of the recent evidence from the peer-reviewed literature on the effectiveness and harms of noninvasive treatments for chronic noncancer pain. The current state of the science on treatments for the most common types of chronic pain are presented in the following three reports.
- Opioid Treatments for Chronic Pain.
- Nonopioid Pharmacologic Treatments for Chronic Pain.
- Noninvasive Nonpharmacologic Treatment for Chronic Pain: A Systematic Review Update.
Each report is being updated with three literature searches completed since the reports were originally posted, putting newly identified studies in the context of what is known. The literature searches, posted in the above links as surveillance reports, will continue through June 2022.
