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Governments should measure pain when assessing societal wellbeing

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Governments make efforts to measure citizens’ wellbeing, and the indicators are constantly evaluated. Evidence across the social and medical sciences shows that pain is a socioeconomic, psychosocial and behavioural phenomenon. Governments should incorporate the systematic measurement of pain into metrics of wellbeing.

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Fig. 1: Socioeconomic, psychosocial and behavioural aspects of pain.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Health and Psychological Sciences, City, University of London, London, UK

    Lucía Macchia

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  1. Lucía Macchia
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Correspondence to Lucía Macchia.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Macchia, L. Governments should measure pain when assessing societal wellbeing. Nat Hum Behav 7, 303–305 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01539-3

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