Chronic Pain Tied to Poor Physical, Mental Health, Increased COVID Risk
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Individuals who have chronic pain at age 44 are more likely to report poor general health, poor mental health, and joblessness when they are in their 50s and 60s, new research shows.
Chronic pain at age 44 (in 2002) was also predictive of SARS-CoV-2 infection nearly two decades later, in 2021.
"We speculate that pain earlier in life predicts a higher likelihood of COVID infection because it may be picking up health vulnerabilities," study investigator Prof Alex Bryson, with University College London (UCL) Social Research Institute, told Medscape Medical News.
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@junaid-a The findings are based on data from the National Child Development Survey (NCDS), which is following all individuals born during one week in March 1958 in England, Scotland, and Wales.
The researchers focused mainly on data collected in 2003, when most of the roughly 12,000 respondents were aged 44, as well as data collected in 2008, 2013, and 2021, when they were roughly 50, 55, and 62 years old, respectively.