The joint statement has been prepared by the SIP Portugal platform in March 2019 and presents the common position of all those involved and proposes actions to be taken, relevant to pain, in two categories: employment and education. There is a need to develop policies and design action strategies so that many of the key problems identified are reduced. This is only possible if there is an effective and preventive intervention of public policies in health.
The document is a great example how a national SIP platform should address societal impact of pain topics to policy makers and is a helpful tool for other SIP national platforms to prepare similar documents for national use.