JULY 21, 2025
Originally published by our sister publication Pain Medicine News
Stronger familial relationships, including those with a partner, children and parents, could result in lessened pain scores compared with patients with more strained connections for older Black Americans, according to new research (J Pain 2025 Jun 30. doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2025.105484).
A team of investigators identified distinct longitudinal pain phenotype trajectories and examined the association with family relationship
Originally published by our sister publication Pain Medicine News
Stronger familial relationships, including those with a partner, children and parents, could result in lessened pain scores compared with patients with more strained connections for older Black Americans, according to new research (J Pain 2025 Jun 30. doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2025.105484).
A team of investigators identified distinct longitudinal pain phenotype trajectories and examined the association with family relationship quality among older Black Americans.
“Given persistent pain disparities experienced by older Black adults, understanding associations between family relationships and how chronic pain unfolds during aging has important clinical implications,” the authors wrote.
The study included 2,586 participants with a mean age of 66.65 years from eight biennial waves between 2006 and 2020 of the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study. Each participant reported pain at baseline.
The investigators conducted latent class analyses of pain incidence, severity, interference and prescription pain medication use, and found cross-sectional pain phenotypes within each wave: no pain; mild to moderate chronic pain; and severe high-impact chronic pain.
The results also show following second-order latent class analyses, each patient’s probability of experiencing each phenotype at each wave. This resulted in five 14-year pain phenotype trajectories: no chronic pain; persistent mild to moderate chronic pain; persistent severe high-impact chronic pain; chronic pain recovery; and chronic pain worsening.
The likelihood of persistent mild to moderate pain was lower with greater intimate partner support and higher with greater intimate partner strain compared with pain-free adults..
Similar trends were found for other pain phenotypes.
The same was true for persistent severe high-impact chronic pain, which also was lower with greater parent–child support and lower with greater parent–child strain.
Greater parent–child train was associated with a higher likelihood of pain worsening over time.
“Ameliorating strained relationships and leveraging supportive relationship benefits may provide a culturally attuned biopsychosocial approach to improving older Black Americans’ pain,” the authors wrote. “Research is needed to determine mediating mechanisms for identification of precise intervention targets.”
— Kenny Walter
