About

About chronic pain

Chronic pain is pain that persists for longer than three months, past the point of typical tissue healing. Eight million people in Canada live with chronic pain, a condition that affects both physical and mental health, inhibits work, play, relationships, and overall quality of life. Pain disproportionately impacts people living in poverty, those with mental health conditions, workers in the trades, veterans, Indigenous peoples, some racialized communities, LGBTQ2S communities, those who have experienced trauma, persons with disabilities, and women.

About Pain Canada

Pain Canada is a multi-stakeholder, national initiative supported by Pain BC. It is the home-base for the eight million people in Canada living with chronic pain and creates new opportunities for action by connecting people, ideas, organizations and resources to enable a national movement.

Pain Canada is the first multi-stakeholder national initiative where people with lived experience of pain are at the centre of decision-making and priority-setting. We mobilize resources to build capacity towards dramatically improved systems of care and support for people with pain.

Health Canada's report An Action Plan for Pain in Canada

Pain Canada was created in response to Health Canada’s 2021 report An Action Plan for Pain in Canada. Among many other recommendations, the Action Plan called for national mechanisms to improve coordination, create community capacity, develop and disseminate pain-related guidance and best practices and to enable collaboration among governments, regulators and health professional organizations, people with lived experience, non-governmental organizations, researchers, employers, and other stakeholders with a role to play in the Action Plan’s implementation.

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