The Acute Problem with Chronic Pain Marketing and How Mara Baer Suggests Fixing It

Mara Baer, a chronic pain advocate, published author, and founder of AgoHealth, recently sat down for an interview with Swaay.Health to discuss the critical nuances of communicating with individuals living with chronic pain. During the conversation, Baer shed light on the hidden realities of the condition and shared actionable strategies for healthcare marketers to improve messaging, visual imagery, and overall patient engagement.

Core Insight: To build authentic trust with the one in five Americans living with chronic pain, healthcare marketers must:

• Abandon acute pain messaging (acute pain and chronic pain are NOT the same)
• Stop using generic stock imagery depicting people in pain
• Use better terminology: people living with chronic pain vs suffering from chronic pain
• Recognize patients as whole people and expert partners in their own care

A significant disconnect exists between how marketers depict pain and how patients experience it. Marketers often default to visual cliches such as an individual holding their back while in discomfort or a construction worker grimacing on the job. These images depict acute and sudden pain rather than chronic pain.

Chronic pain is largely an invisible challenge, and individuals are constantly adapting and striving to maintain high functionality in their daily lives despite it. Baer emphasized the need for imagery that reflects this reality: “Showing imagery that shows people doing their best to function versus being put down by their condition, that can go a long way,”

Furthermore, word choice is critical when addressing this demographic. Using terms like “living with chronic pain” instead of “chronic pain sufferer” honors the individual’s humanity and helps reduce stigma. “The idea that we talk about people as the person with the lived experience of chronic pain versus identifying them as their condition can go a long way for people to feel I’m a human being beyond my condition,” Baer explained.

Baer strongly advocates that healthcare marketers create campaigns that move away from portraying patients as passive recipients on the sidelines and toward treating them as active, respected partners in their care journey. This requires abandoning unrealistic “before and after” cure narratives and instead acknowledging the complex, holistic impact of chronic pain, including its significant toll on mental health.

Patients with chronic pain are four to five times more likely to experience anxiety and depression, requiring a deeply empathetic and honest communication approach. To get this right, healthcare marketers must involve individuals with lived experience directly in the design of campaigns to ensure the stories are accurate and resonant. As Baer stated, “When it’s done right, you will know because patients will feel recognized and rather than marketed to… you’ll see stronger engagement.”

Are our marketing assets perpetuating the stigma of chronic pain by using acute pain stereotypes? Marketing leaders must audit their visual and written assets to ensure they do not reduce individuals to their condition or rely on exaggerated depictions of suffering. Campaigns should be evaluated on whether they show realistic adaptations and individuals striving to function normally, rather than just the immediate physical manifestation of an acute injury.

How can we incorporate empathy into our patient storytelling and service line campaigns? Moving forward, marketing and patient experience teams need to establish formal mechanisms for co-creating content with patients who have lived experiences. This involves soliciting direct feedback during the creative process to ensure narratives do not oversimplify the journey or falsely promise magical cures, but instead validate the deep emotional and relational impacts of chronic health challenges.

Learn more about AgoHealth at https://www.agohealth.com/