The opioid crisis has identified the extent of chronic pain as a health problem in Canada and the necessity of addressing pain as part of the solution to the crisis
In 2004 the Canadian Senate designated the first full week of November as National Pain Awareness Week [NPAW]. This provides a focus for raising public and governmental awareness about pain.
Now in its twentieth year, NPAW 2024 reached more than 1.4 million people with its social media campaigns, generating 4.5 million impressions. Led by Pain Canada and Pain BC, the campaign is contributed to by many Canadian pain facing organizations, research institutes and centers, including the Michael G DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care.
‘Putting the Pieces Together’ conference
Putting the Pieces Together [PTPT] is the first and only pain conference created by and for people with lived experience of pain [PWLE].
The virtual conference, free to attend, is presented in a series of daily sessions during NPAW. The conference is supported by Pain Canada, Health Canada, Pain BC, the Chronic Pain Network, the CIHR Institute for Musculoskeletal health and Arthritis [IMHA], and Patients Engaged in Pain Research [PEPR].
There were nearly 1100 registrants, with over 700 active participants over the week of the conference.
Associate Minster of Health the Honorable Ya’ra Saks provided opening remarks and was followed by a panel of provincial leaders sharing their progress on expanding access to pain care.
Creative movement sessions were facilitated by PWLE practitioners, as were research and self-management focused discussions. A session on the benefits of peer support flowed well into peer-supported conversations. A session on decolonizing pain brought together Western pain neuroscience with traditional healing and ways of knowing as well as an experiential, land-based session led by a local Indigenous community member. Plans are underway for the 2025 PTPT.
Finally on Thursday November 8, Research Canada held a virtual meeting of the non-partisan Parliamentary Health Research Caucus, co-sponsored by the Chronic Pain Network. Entitled Breaking Barriers in Pain and Addiction, the event brought together Canadian PWLE, basic science researchers, policy makers and clinical researchers to highlight for Parliamentarians the current state of pain care and research in Canada.
