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Pain may not increase linearly with age, with the sharpest rises occurring before age 55, according to a global analysis of more than 6 million people published in Nature Medicine. The findings could help researchers compare pain across populations and improve global pain monitoring and prevention.

Pain is a leading cause of disability worldwide, but there is no standard way to compare self-reported pain across ages and regions. Existing estimates often focus on diagnosed conditions, which may overlook pain among people with limited access to health care.

Matt Fillingim, Etienne Vachon-Presseau and colleagues analyzed self-reported pain data collected between 1990 and 2025 from 6,125,459 people ages 5 to over 100 across 118 countries and territories. Pain prevalence ranged from around 2% for facial pain to 40% for back pain. Pain was more common in women than men across all 11 body areas studied, with the largest differences seen for facial pain, headaches and stomach or abdominal pain.

Across all body areas, pain prevalence rose most sharply before age 55, although patterns differed by body area: headaches and abdominal pain peaked earlier in life, while back, hip and knee pain continued to increase with age.

From age 40, pain anywhere in the body, joint pain and back pain increased more rapidly in countries with lower Human Development Index (HDI) values. At age 80 or older, the prevalence of any bodily pain was around 31 percentage points higher in countries with lower HDI values than in those with higher HDI values, and low back pain was nearly twice as common.

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