Keynote Address: Socioeconomic Inequities and Pain Over the Life Course

Abstract Body: Chronic pain is strongly associated with socioeconomic position. There is extensive evidence of higher pain onset, duration, interference, and poorer pain care for people in lower socioeconomic positions. In order to go beyond documenting these inequities, we need a better understanding of the mechanisms that generate and maintain the socioeconomic stratification of pain outcomes.

Using socioecological and life course approaches, Dr. Kapos will outline bidirectional relationships between socioeconomic position and pain. She will discuss different pathways that may contribute to socioeconomic pain inequities at different developmental stages and how these mechanisms may inform the development of multilevel interventions towards equity.

From a methodological standpoint, Dr. Kapos will exemplify the use of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to support causal thinking and discuss approaches to expand the conceptualization and measurement of socioeconomic position in pain research.