Welcome to the UC Davis Center for Advancing Pain Relief
Approximately 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain at an estimated annual cost of approximately $600 billion.
— Institute of Medicine, Relieving Pain in America: a Blueprint for
Transforming Prevention, Care, Education and Research, 2011
The UC Davis Center for Advancing Pain Relief leverages the vast expertise of scholars and scientists in medicine, nursing and other health-science disciplines, to discover and deliver the knowledge and tools to effectively help people manage pain and improve their quality of life.
Video: Advancing pain competencies around the world
The UC Davis Center for Advancing Pain Relief facilitated a half-day symposium of clinicians interested in improving global education in pain care Sept. 26, 2016, in Yokohama, Japan, in parallel with the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) World Congress on Pain. The meeting brought together 46 clinicians from 17 countries to share ideas about ways to better integrate pain education and pain care into the training of health care professionals.
“With educators, scientists, physicians, nurses, psychologists, pharmacists, social workers, alternative health care providers, veterinarians, lawyers and many more, we have the opportunity to seize the diverse expertise within our university, bring down invisible barriers, and synergize our efforts in treating pain. By working together, we can stem the tide of the national epidemic of inadequate and too often harmful pain management and lead innovations that will change how pain is addressed by health providers and taught by health educators nationwide.”
“Pain is a multidimensional experience and effective approaches take more perspectives than any one individual or profession might bring. Since our nursing, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, medical and pharmacy students learn together, let’s harness that diversity and teach them best practices before they enter practice.”