ENROLLED
2016 Regular Session
HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 226
BY REPRESENTATIVE GARY CARTER
A RESOLUTION
To designate the month of September 2016 as Pain Awareness Month in Louisiana.
WHEREAS, over one hundred million American adults suffer from chronic pain,
including millions with debilitating conditions such as chronic lower back pain,
fibromyalgia, and arthritis; and
WHEREAS, chronic pain costs America up to six hundred thirty-five billion dollars
a year in added health costs and lost productivity, including billions of dollars in Medicaid
costs; and
WHEREAS, chronic pain is a major public health problem and a hidden driver of
rising health care costs; and
WHEREAS, significant barriers to adequate pain care exist, including regulatory,
legal, institutional, financial, and geographical barriers, and as a result, millions of
Americans settle for inadequate pain care; and
WHEREAS, pain and pain treatment represent a national challenge, and cultural
modifications are needed to better prevent, assess, treat, and understand pain of all types; and
WHEREAS, the findings regarding chronic pain were made by the Institute of
Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in its landmark report issued in 2011,
"Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and
Research"; and
WHEREAS, this report included a number of recommendations to improve pain care,
education, and research; and
WHEREAS, this report found that significant savings could be achieved through
better treatment of acute pain, such as a reduction in workers' compensation costs, an end
to significant lost tax revenues, and a reduced burden of the societal costs of opioid abuse
and misuse; and
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WHEREAS, the report recommended that a comprehensive plan should be developed
that would heighten awareness about pain and its health consequences, emphasize the
prevention of pain, improve the assessment of pain and plans for management of that pain,
use public health strategies to educate the public, and address the disparities in the
experience of pain among Americans; and
WHEREAS, by designating a Pain Awareness Month in the state, the Louisiana
House of Representatives is taking a positive step in heightening awareness of pain,
particularly chronic pain, and its health consequences; and
WHEREAS, chronic pain is a serious health problem and the appropriate agencies
of state government should examine ways state agencies could improve the health and
productivity of its citizens and reduce personal and government health care expenditures by
implementing the recommendations of the report issued by the Institute of Medicine.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the House of Representatives of the
Legislature of Louisiana does hereby recognize the month of September 2016 as Pain
Awareness Month in Louisiana.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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