The European Federation of IASP Chapters (EFIC) first launched the Global Day Against Pain in 2001, thanks to an idea of David Niv, a now-deceased IASP member and EFIC president. The success of this initiative led the IASP Council to develop and adopt a more powerful strategy to increase awareness of pain and the multidisciplinary approaches to reducing and/or alleviating it worldwide.
One European citizen in five suffers indeed from chronic pain, and this accounts for 500 million working hours lost each year. The main aim of this campaign is to present pain in all its aspects and in all its social consequences, in order to gain attention amongst the medical community, the general public and local media.
This year, EFIC and IASP chose to concentrate on pain in the Most Vulnerable, which includes pain in older persons (including pain in dementia), infants and young children, individuals with cognitive impairments (non dementia-related) or psychiatric disorders, as well as survivors of torture.
Factsheets and resources are available on our website. European Policy and advocacy resources and national best practices on pain in the most vulnerable are displayed, as well as Global resources from Pain and Pain Report. You will also find this Year Factsheets prepared by top experts on various aspects of vulnerable populations, free to download.
What’s next?
Stay tuned for more resources and initiative related to the year against pain in the Most Vulnerable. We will include selected article from the European Journal of Pain and will have dedicated sections at our EFIC congress in Valencia touching upon various related themes.
Want to take part in our project?
Should you be interested in getting involved in our project, please let us know your upcoming Global and European Year activities! You can also follow the event on social media, following the #GYPainVulnerable and #EYPainVulnerable conversations on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Including the Global Year logo and the European Year logo your website, event flyers, announcements, social media posts, and other material (various formats available here) is also really rewarding for us.
Check here periodically for Fact Sheets translated into one of the languages of the 37 chapters of EFIC. We will post these as they become available. Please let us know if you would like to translate the Fact Sheets and contact us at secretary@efic.org
