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Back pain, a communicable disease?
Heiner Raspe1, Angelika Hueppe, Hannelore Neuhauser
1Institute for Social Medicine, University of Luebeck, D Luebeck, Germany. heiner.raspe@uk-sh.de
Background:
Back pain (BP) is a frequent disorder affecting currently up to 40% of adults in Western Europe. Most of it is said to be 'non-specific', i.e. lacking an obvious patho-anatomical explanation. It is seldom the consequence of a contagious disease caused by microorganisms. This does not exclude it from being communicable if 'communicable' is to refer to something being transmitted by sharing or exchanging information.
Aim:
To propose the hypothesis of BP being a communicable disease.
Methods And Results:
We base our hypothesis on a reanalysis of five German health surveys. They show a wide gap in BP prevalence between West and East Germany early after reunification. The gap consistently decreased to nearly zero in 2003. Work disability data followed a comparable course.
Discussion:
Various processes may have contributed to the observed changes. Our hypothesis is corroborated by experimental research showing that BP-related beliefs, attitudes and behaviour could positively be influenced by media campaigns and by insights from another recent epidemic.
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