The Australian Longitudinal Study on Back and Neck Pain has released its first two data reports, highlighting the data collected over the first year of the study. 

The study aims to understand the prevalence, causes and impact of back and neck pain on individuals across Australia, through regular collection and analysis of data from people experiencing back and neck pain via an annual survey. 

Launched in 2023, it is a collaboration by researchers at the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia and currently has more than 1700 participants enrolled across Australia. 

Initially, the researchers, led by Dr Rutger de Zoete, a physiotherapy lecturer and researcher at the University of Adelaide, have focused on getting a snapshot of back and neck pain in Australia—the demographics of the people who report having back and neck pain and what they do to treat and manage it. 

‘It’s had quite a bit of traction, which is very positive. We’ve heard from so many people and we’re starting to be able to paint a picture of what back and neck pain means in Australia in terms of its impact. 

The data has been interesting,’ says Rutger. ‘When people have neck and back pain, what do they do? What modes of care are they looking for? What can they access? What do they actually utilise? And what challenges might there be in terms of both access and utilisation of those types of services?’ 

In their first report, published in mid-2024, the researchers reported that 68 per cent of respondents to the initial survey were female, 30 per cent were male and the remaining two per cent identified as other, with an average age of 60 years old.

Respondents rated their average pain intensity as being around 55 out of 100 for neck pain and 62 out of 100 for back pain.

Seventeen per cent of survey respondents said they had attended the emergency department for neck or back pain (five per cent for neck pain, 12 per cent for back pain) and 14 per cent had spent time in hospital as a result of their pain (eight per cent for neck pain, six per cent for back pain). 

And 48/56 per cent of people with neck/back pain had undergone some form of spinal imaging. 

The first data report also looked at the different ways that people with neck or back pain have managed their pain. Patients had primarily tried physiotherapy (around 70 per cent), chiropractic (almost 50 per cent), remedial massage (around 60 per cent) and pain medications including analgesics and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (70–80 per cent). 

About 20 per cent had sought the assistance of psychologists for pain management and between 10 and 20 per cent had had spinal surgeries to address pain. 

‘We have found that people really do seek a wide range of treatment options and I think that shows that neck and back pain are rather persistent—when we look at the numbers, we see that the vast majority of our cohort have chronic pain. Those are the people who are going to look for different treatments if something doesn’t work,’ Rutger says. 

Rutger says the team was surprised by the number of people who go beyond conservative treatments like physiotherapy and massage. ‘The number of hospital stays and surgeries—spinal surgeries—is quite high for back pain, a bit more than for neck pain. 

We also see that the vast majority actually use simple analgesics and anti inflammatory drugs for managing their own back and neck pain, which shows that it really has an impact on how people live their lives when they experience neck and back pain,’ he says. 

In fact, in the initial cohort, more than 22 per cent of people with back pain and 28 per cent of those with neck pain have changed their work status due to pain. 

The number of people experiencing barriers in seeking care for their pain is also telling, says Rutger. 

More than 40 per cent of individuals experienced financial difficulties in accessing healthcare compared to the national average of seven per cent and 48 per cent of individuals paid more for medical care than they could afford, he says. 

He also noted that more than 50 per cent of individuals were not able to get medical care whenever they needed it for back and neck pain, compared to the national average of 30 per cent for any health condition. 

While the team has not yet drilled down into survey demographics about where people live (in large metropolitan areas or in regional, rural or remote Australia) and their socio-economic status, they plan to do so and Rutger expects that it will show significant differences. 

More recently, the researchers have started to look at how neck and back pain affects the quality of life of participants. 

The second report, published in January 2025, provides data on the number of participants reporting sleep difficulties (almost 80 per cent were dissatisfied with their sleep quality), whether they took part in leisure-based physical activity (more than 53 per cent did not, which is higher than the national average of 46 per cent) and more. 

The vast majority (93 per cent) of respondents experience chronic pain as opposed to acute or subacute pain and while 75 per cent use some form of medication to manage their pain symptoms, over a third of them said they received little to no benefit from their use. 

A concerning statistic was that 15 per cent reported using alcohol specifically as a way to manage their pain. On average, people experiencing back and neck pain rated their quality of life at 60/100, significantly lower than the national average of 72/100. 

Rutger says that while the data that has been released to date has been fairly broad in its approach, as the study continues, there will be opportunities to look at changes over time and in more depth. 

In addition to the biannual data reports, Rutger and his team hope to start publishing research papers this year and several postgraduate students are working with the data to answer specific questions. 

The team is keen to collaborate with researchers on different questions and he notes that questions can be added to the follow-up surveys. ‘A survey like this is, I think, quite responsive to what researchers might want to do. 

For example, in the second report there is a section on breathlessness, which is a novel concept in chronic pain work. 

This was added off the back of someone’s research, one of the researchers here at the University of Adelaide. We included a couple of questions, asking if the respondent experiences breathlessness and to what extent. 

It’s easy to add specific questions like that to the survey so if there is a particular trend or current or acute interest in something, we can adopt that into the survey and get rapid data to report back to the researcher,’ Rutger says. 

‘It’s very effective and I think that’s probably going to stimulate quite a bit of collaboration in the future.’ 

The data reports can be downloaded from the study page on the Open Science Framework via doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/5QXJE 

For more information about the study and to sign up for updates on the results, visit painstudy.org.au