Adolescent chronic pain costs $19. 5 billion a year in United States

Chronic pain affects about 5 percent of children and adolescents. They seek more medical care, use more medication, miss more school, and report worse quality of life than their peers without pain, but little has been known about the costs of chronic pain in childhood and adolescence. In a new study, researchers sought to better understand the economic costs to society due to adolescent chronic pain.