Chronic pain is a condition that affects one in five Americans without regard for their race or finances. But a new study finds that minorities and people with low incomes have less access than high-income white people to the medications that will help them endure their pain. In a wide-reaching study of 95 pharmacies in ZIP codes with predominantly white populations and 93 pharmacies in ZIP codes with predominantly minority populations, researchers at the University of Michigan Health System's Department of Anesthesiology found a pronounced gap in the availability of prescription opioid analgesic medications.