The Connecticut Cancer Pain Initiative (CCPI) is dedicated to ending needless suffering from chronic and acute pain due to cancer and other diseases and to improving the quality of life for residents of Connecticut affected by pain.

Founded in 1990, CCPI is a nonprofit voluntary organization of the American Cancer Society, New England Division. It is an interdisciplinary team of health care professionals and consumers that endorses the principles of pain management and standards of care recommended by the World Health Organization and the American Pain Society. We believe that people with pain have a basic right to good pain assessment and management.

There is no fee to join CCPI, and all who support the mission and are willing to work to achieve the goals, are encouraged to join. CCPI is a member of the American Alliance of Cancer Pain Initiatives.

Unrelieved pain is a major public health problem. More than 50 million Americans suffer from chronic pain and 25 million experience acute pain as a result of injury or surgery. Fifty percent of cancer patients live with pain on a daily basis and some 50 to 70 percent of them experience uncontrolled pain at some point during their illness. It adversely affects the quality of life for sufferers and for those close to them. CCPI works to promote effective pain management, through education, advocacy, and institutional change in order that relief from pain becomes an inherent part of treatment.

The goals of the Connecticut Cancer Pain Initiative are to:

• Provide pain management education and training to a broad range of health care professionals
• Provide up-to-date information to cancer patients and their families on pain
• Educate legislative, regulatory and public agencies that influence and control access to appropriate pain management
• Assist health care facilities to overcome barriers to good pain management practices
• Educate the public about the pain “Bill of Rights”
• Foster liaisons and collaborations with organizations/initiatives whose mission is consistent with the CCPI

For more information about CCPI, contact Pat Trotta at 203-379-4763 or email ctpain@cancer.org.

You may write to us at:

American Cancer Society
538 Preston Avenue, P.O. Box 1004
Meriden, CT 06450-1004