Chronic pain is a significant public health problem and is associated with increased economic, functional, and psychological burden. While pain affects all segments of the population, racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S., particularly African Americans, experience more frequent, severe and disabling chronic pain compared to their non-Hispanic white counterparts. While multiple factors inevitably contribute, cognitive and affective processes and ethnic group differences in central pain processing represent potentially important determinants of greater clinical pain among African Americans. The proposed work will elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the influence of catastrophizing on pain response in different ethnic groups. Findings will have strong implications for advancement of the understanding of pain catastrophizing and its influence on pain in different ethnic groups.
| Thompson, Kathryn A; Bulls, Hailey W; Sibille, Kimberly T et al. (2018) Optimism and Psychological Resilience are Beneficially Associated With Measures of Clinical and Experimental Pain in Adults With or at Risk for Knee Osteoarthritis. Clin J Pain 34:1164-1172 |
