At a glance:
- By HALEY BRIDGER | Mass General Brigham Communications
- Research shows that among former football players, Black athletes experienced more disruptive and more intense chronic pain.
- Researchers say both biologic and psychosocial factors may drive the chronic pain differences between Black and white former players.
- The findings underscore the complex nature of racial disparities in chronic pain, raise important questions about mechanisms that underlie these differences.
Former Black National Football League players experience disproportionate levels of chronic pain, compared with their white peers, according to a new study led by researchers from Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.
The analysis, done as part of the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University, showed that Black former players experienced more intense and higher levels of pain that interfered with daily activities than white former players.
The findings, published in the journal Pain, represent one of the largest studies on pain in racial and ethnic minority groups and align with similar findings of race-related disparities in chronic pain in general populations.
"We've known for quite a while that there are large racial and ethnic differences in pain outcomes around the world, just like there are for most other medical outcomes," said senior author Robert Edwards, HMS associate professor of anaesthesia and a clinical psychologist in the Center for Pain Medicine at Brigham and Women's. "It's only recently we've been studying some of the contributors to these sorts of effects in the U.S."
