Cumulative adulthood trauma exposures and pain outcomes among older adults

The majority of research on connections between trauma exposure and adult pain focuses on childhood trauma. Trauma experienced during adulthood receives less attention, especially among middle-aged and older adults. This longitudinal study explores the relationships between adulthood trauma and the onset of pain over 6 years among middle-aged and older adults, after controlling for childhood trauma.

We analyze data from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative longitudinal survey of adults aged 50+. Our analytic sample (N = 6724) consists of participants (M = 64.4 ± 10.8 years) with no reports of pain in the past 10 years. A multilevel mixed effects logistic regression analysis was performed with repeated measures of pain over a six-year period as an outcome, adulthood traumatic events as exposures, and demographic, childhood trauma, and health-related factors as covariates.

Exposure to 2+ adulthood traumatic events was significantly related to a higher risk of pain onset (OR = 1.34; 95% CI: 1.04, 1.71), when controlling for demographic and health-related factors. After adjusting for childhood trauma, this relationship attenuated slightly, but remained statistically significant (OR = 1.28; 95% CI: 1.00, 1.64).

Our results indicate that trauma exposure at multiple life stages independently contributes to pain outcomes in older adults. Notably, the negative impact of adulthood trauma persists even among those with a history of childhood trauma. We encourage future research exploring these underlying biopsychosocial mechanisms linking life-course trauma to pain in later life.