Lucy Donaldson
Director For Research & Health Intelligence, Versus Arthritis
Chronic pain is life-changing for people with arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions. Teamwork and listening to people with lived experience is the path forward to beating chronic pain.
As the UK’s largest dedicated funder of arthritis research, Versus Arthritis is helping to bring together the expertise needed to push back on pain.
Chronic pain’s societal impact
Chronic pain colours everything and prevents people from living a full life and, for some, from earning a living. It’s one of the main reasons people see their GP. It affects up to 28 million people (43%) in the UK alone. The impact of chronic pain on wider society is significant.
It is the most difficult problem for many people with arthritis, which is why we took the lead in 2019, bringing together experts in pain, people with arthritis, healthcare professionals and researchers to create a research roadmap. This was a turning point in honing in on what scientific, clinical and patient-support advances needed to be made and led us to develop the Advanced Pain Discovery Platform (APDP) initiative.
The impact of chronic pain
on wider society is significant.
Pain research initiative
The APDP is a five-year, £24 million initiative funded by Versus Arthritis in partnership with the UK Research and Innovation Strategic Priorities fund, with additional funding coming from Eli Lilly and the Medical Research Foundation.
The APDP brings together pain scientists from across the UK to take on the challenge of chronic pain. The funded APDP projects in the UK include lab-based science, biopsychosocial research and data platforms, all involving people with lived experience of pain. Being guided by those who know what it means to live in pain is central to making progress.
Since 2010, we have also funded and supported the Pain Centre Versus Arthritis at the University of Nottingham, which places great emphasis on ensuring patients’ insights are fully embedded in its chronic pain research.
Seeking voices for research
Given the critical role of real-life experiences, we are seeking more people to help us shape future research. It’s through collective action that advances will be made to transform the lives of people living in the shadow of chronic pain.
Visit www.versusarthritis.org/research to learn more.
