Suffering Is Common. Support Should Be Too.

Most of us will experience suffering at some point in life. It can creep up slowly through daily struggles, or it can overwhelm us suddenly in a moment of tragedy. While suffering is a shared human experience, each person’s suffering is often deeply personal. This can make it difficult to describe our own suffering or fully understand the suffering that others experience.

A lot of what we know about the experience of suffering has come from research within clinical settings or populations, such as people with cancer or those receiving end-of-life care. The Global Flourishing Study provides a unique opportunity to broaden this picture by providing insight into how common suffering is in the general population, who might be at higher risk of experiencing suffering, and how suffering can affect well-being.

The Global Flourishing Study follows people over time in 23 countries and territories to better understand what a flourishing life looks like in different parts of the world. In previous work using the first wave of data collected from more than 200,000 people in 2023, roughly 44% of adults across the included countries reported ‘some’ or ‘a lot’ of suffering in response to the following question: “To what extent are you suffering?” There was variation across countries, ranging from 24% in Poland to 60% in Turkey.

In a new study, we used the first two waves of annual data to ask a new question: is suffering associated with well-being approximately one year later in national samples from 23 countries? When results were pooled across countries, suffering was associated with worse well-being on more than 40 of the 56 outcomes examined, including lower happiness, relationship satisfaction, hope, and financial security. While these findings do not definitively prove that the experience of suffering causes lower subsequent well-being, similar results have been reported in prior longitudinal research with smaller samples.

These findings show that there are many people who experience “everyday” forms of suffering that can affect well-being. This reinforces the importance of working toward a world with less preventable suffering. Many sources of suffering, such as violence, poverty, and neglect, could and should be reduced. At the same time, we must be realistic. Some sources of suffering, such as the loss of a loved one or living with the consequences of a life-altering personal mistake, may not be fully preventable. In some cases, suffering that is experienced may be fitting in response to loss, disappointment, or wrongdoing. If suffering is not something that we can avoid entirely, then it seems important for us to ask: how can people be appropriately supported when they experience suffering?

One approach is to strengthen the availability of resources that can help people prepare for, endure, and respond constructively to suffering. These ends are already a priority in fields like medicine, palliative care, psychology, and psychiatry. But not everyone who experiences suffering necessarily needs formal treatment, intends to seek it, or can readily access it, even if they are likely to benefit from additional help. This is why it may be important to make beneficial resources and supports more widely available for the broader population, such as self-directed workbooks, psychoeducational groups, or community workshops.

One example that could be leveraged alongside a broader population health psychology ecosystem of resources is the freely available TRANSCEND Suffering workbook, a self-guided tool designed to support those who are suffering. Resources such as this can be flexibly adapted and scaled through health systems, workplaces, schools and universities, religious communities, and civic organizations in ways that are sensitive to local needs and contexts. Although scalable resources should not replace professional care when it is needed, they may help to fill an important gap by reaching a broader range of people outside clinical settings.

We might be tempted to think that a fully flourishing humanity is one in which nobody ever experiences suffering, but eliminating all suffering might not be realistic or even an ideal vision for humanity. A more suitable vision may be one in which preventable suffering is reduced wherever possible, and those who experience suffering have increasing access to beneficial resources and supports. By attending to suffering as a public health issue, it may strengthen our ability to reduce its burden and expand possibilities for human flourishing around the world.