Chronic pain (CP) is a debilitating public health concern that affects anywhere between 16%-41% of Canadians, with factors such as age, gender, cultural context and socioeconomic status explaining the high variability. Chronic pain challenges researchers, clinicians, pharmacists, and policy-makers at several levels, because the elusive nature of pain perception makes it difficult to quantify and qualify pain thus increases the need for a personalized and trial-and-error based pain management system.
The aim of our project is to bring sociologists, anthropologists, health care professionals, designers and computer scientists together to develop a personalized approach to researching and treating chronic pain, which focuses on the strength and resilience that individuals find in their creative agency and self-expression.