Education, gender, and frequent pain among middle-aged and… : PAIN
t pain, including pain severity, interference with daily activities, and medication use (these pain dimension questions were not administered in all countries). Our analytical sample included 92,204 participants aged 50 years and above. We found a high prevalence of frequent pain across the 4 countries ranging from 28% to 41%. Probit models showed that higher education was associated with lower risk of pain (United States: −0.26, 95% CI: −0.33, −0.19; England: −0.32, 95% CI: −0.39, −0.25; China: −0.33, 95% CI −0.41, −0.26; India: −0.18, 95% CI −0.21, −0.15). Notably, in China and India, the negative association between higher education and frequent pain was less pronounced among women compared with men, which was not observed in the United States or England. Further analysis showed that individuals with higher education experiencing frequent pain reported less severity, fewer daily activity interferences, and less medication use compared with those with lower education. In the United S
