Research finding · April 2026
Genetic risk for chronic pain may be linked to suicide risk
Suicide risk is shaped not only by psychological and social factors, but also by biological processes that may influence vulnerability over time. One area of growing interest is the relationship between chronic pain and suicide, as individuals experiencing persistent pain often face increased emotional distress, functional limitations, and reduced quality of life. Research has consistently shown that chronic pain is associated with higher rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, but less is understood about the underlying mechanisms that may connect these experiences. In particular, emerging work in psychiatric genetics has begun to explore whether shared genetic factors may help explain why chronic pain and suicide risk often co-occur, offering new insight into how physical and mental health may be interconnected.
With support from her AFSP grant, Dr. Virginia Willour and her team examined whether genetic predisposition to chronic pain is associated with suicide death. The study included 986 individuals who died by suicide and 415 ancestry-matched controls, using whole-genome sequencing data linked with electronic health records. The team focused on two types of chronic pain: multisite chronic pain (pain occurring in multiple areas of the body) and chronic widespread pain (pain experienced broadly across the body). They calculated polygenic risk scores (i.e., estimates of an individual’s inherited likelihood of developing these pain conditions) and found that individuals who died by suicide tended to have higher genetic risk for both types of chronic pain compared to control groups. In other words, even without directly measuring pain symptoms in all cases, those with a greater inherited likelihood of experiencing widespread or multi-location pain were more likely to be in the suicide group. Consistent with this, electronic health record data showed that individuals with diagnosed chronic pain conditions were also more likely to have been in the suicide group than in the non-suicide group. Together, the findings suggest that vulnerability to chronic pain, both at the genetic level and in lived experience, was associated with suicide death, underscoring the importance of integrating pain management and mental health care in prevention efforts.
Citation: Han, S., DiBlasi, E., Monson, E. T., Shabalin, A. A., Baird, L., Chen, D., Lamichhane, D., Tharp, D., Ferris, E., Yu, Z., Brandon Callor, W., Staley, M. J., Li, Q. S., Willour, V., Crockett, D. K., Eilbeck, K., Bakian, A. V., Keeshin, B. R., Okifuji, A., Coon, H., … Docherty, A. R. (2026). Genetic risk of chronic pain conditions associated with risk of suicide death through an integrative analysis of EHR and genomics data. Translational psychiatry, 16(1), 117. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-026-03861-6
This finding comes from an AFSP-funded study — see the grant below ↓
