Many Americans suffer from chronic pain that lasts longer than 3-6 months — a major public health concern in the United States. Chronic pain can lead to worse physical and mental health, more health care usage, and more disability.

A person's ability to function can vary from one day to the next, depending on how much pain they're in. This can be confusing for others, especially in the workplace.

The annual economic cost of chronic pain in the United States, including both treatment and lost productivity, has been estimated at up to $635 billion. Prevention can help lower the human and financial toll.

Workplace safety and ergonomics

Conditions at work such as heavy lifting, pulling or pushing, improper lifting, poor posture, repetitive motions, sitting all day, poor workspace design, carrying a heavy workbag, or unsafe practices such as distracted driving or slips, trips and falls, can all take a physical toll. Here are some ideas to help employees prevent chronic pain:

• Train employees about proper lifting techniques and good posture.
• Promote the Minnesota hands-free driving bill that went into effect Aug. 1, 2019.
• Post workplace safety posters, including ones for slips, trips, and falls.
• Check out this ergonomic checklist for computer workstations.
• Look into a no-cost Minnesota OSHA (MNOSHA) Workplace Safety Consultation.
• Attend the Minnesota Safety & Health Conference.

If prevention fails and employees seek medical care for chronic pain, two treatments that you might see in the news are opioids and medical marijuana.

Opioids

While there is insufficient evidence that prescription opioids control chronic pain effectively over the long term, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that we are experiencing a prescription opioid overdose epidemic. As many as 1 in 4 people receiving prescription opioids long term in a primary care setting struggles with addiction.

If you need more information about opioids in the workplace, check out this local resource for wellness coordinators: Minnesota Department of Health Opioid Epidemic Response: Employer Toolkit.

Medical marijuana

When the Medical Cannabis Therapeutic Use Act was signed into law in May 2014, Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize medical cannabis. The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Office of Medical Cannabis oversees this legislation.

In August 2020, MDH will add chronic pain as a new qualifying condition for the state’s medical cannabis program.

For current information to share with employees, go to: https://www.health.state.mn.us/people/cannabis/patients/index.html.

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Click here to read this month's E-tips for your employees: "Pain as a chronic disease."

To share these E-tips with employees, you can:  

• Email the E-tips document to your staff as an attachment. 1) Click the link to download and save the E-tips to your computer. 2) Add your organization's logo in the bottom left corner. 3) Then send it as an email attachment to staff. 
• Print the document once you've added your organization's logo and post it in a common area in your workplace.
• Copy and paste the text into your organization's newsletter.

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