Background: Pain is known to be socioeconomically patterned and associated with disability. However, knowledge is scarce concerning life-course socioeconomic circumstances and pain among young adults. Our aim was to examine the associations of childhood and current socioeconomic circumstances with acute pain and chronic pain with low and high disability levels among young Finnish municipal employees.
Methods: We analysed questionnaire data retrieved from the Young Helsinki Health Study (n=4683) covering 18-39-year-old employees of the City of Helsinki, Finland. We included multiple indicators of childhood and current socioeconomic circumstances and examined their associations with acute pain and with chronic pain with low and high disability levels. The level of chronic pain-related disability was assessed by the chronic pain grade questionnaire. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted with stepwise adjustments for sociodemographic, socioeconomic and health-related covariates.
Results: Childhood and current socioeconomic disadvantage were associated with acute and chronic pain, particularly with chronic pain with high disability level. The strongest associations after adjustments for covariates remained between chronic pain with high disability level and low educational level (odds ratio (OR) 3.38, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.18-5.24), manual occupation (OR 3.75, 95% CI 1.92-7.34) and experiencing frequent economic difficulties (OR 3.07, 95% CI 2.00-4.70).
Conclusions: Pain is a common complaint that contributes to disability among young employees, particularly the most socioeconomically vulnerable. There is a socioeconomic gradient in both pain chronicity and the level of chronic pain-related disability. Life-course socioeconomic factors should be considered in pain-preventing strategies and in clinical practice.
Keywords: Pain; adverse childhood experiences; chronic pain; disabled persons; education; occupations; socioeconomic factors.