Overreliance on the biomedical paradigm has contributed, in part, to illogical use of surgery and long-term opioid medication with harmful physical, psychological, social, and economic consequences. Pain literature is dominated by biomedical research at the expense of a holistic understanding of the lived experience of pain. Pain practice seems overly consumed with the burden of pain at an individual level (patient-centred pain management) and has neglected exploration of societal level (community-centred) or environmental level (ecologically-centred) solutions.

The biomedical paradigm, grounded in the cure of illness and disease, does not provide a complete understanding of the origin of health and the role of the environment in fashioning health. Research methodologies from non-biomedical disciplines can explore social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental conditions that influence the lived experience of pain in the modern era. Investigating the phenomenon of pain using socio-ecological frameworks provide opportunities to shift perspectives and open-up new avenues for exploration, including strategies to reduce the burden of pain on society. Areas of interest include painogenicity of modern urban living; pain and the environment; salutogenesis and pain; biomedical narrative and pain; resilience sources for pain management; and positive psychology and pain.

We seek to better understand the complex socio-ecological milieu in which individuals, communities and populations view and experience pain. We are particularly interested in whether modern urban environments (their physical, political, cultural, and environmental make-up) are painogenic; The purpose of this Topic Review is to broaden our understanding of the meaning and experience of pain in the modern era by showcasing contributions from non-biomedical disciplines. This includes exploration of the concept of painogenic lifestyles and environments, and non-medical strategies targeting living well with pain at individual, community, or population levels. Our desire is to catalyse scholarly conversation about the interplay between individuals, society, and ecosystems to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of pain and to inform future healthcare research, practice, and policy.

The Research Topic is deliberately broad in scope, to encourage cross-fertilisation of scholarly disciplines from the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, formal sciences, and applied sciences. We welcome papers exploring pain from the perspective of Anthropology, Behavioural sciences, Ecology, Evolution, Health promotion, History, Politics, Philosophy, Sociology, Socio- economics, Spirituality, the Arts, and Theology. We encourage contributions that map gaps in knowledge, and contributions about salutogenesis, the impact of the urban or biomedical milieu on pain experience, and societal- and ecological-centred approaches to living-well with pain. We will accept theoretical, empirical, and ethnographic contributions utilizing conventional and non-conventional approaches to explore any aspect of pain. We hope that this Research Topic will broaden our understanding of the complex socio-ecological milieu in which pain exists and broaden the lens through which we view pain, its prevention, and its management.