THE Gender Pain Gap

Unequal pay is one thing, but what if we told you that women and men also don't get equal treatment at the doctor's office? Here's what to know about how to get the relief you need.

- GINNY GRAVES

Imagine your lower back hurts so much that you book a doctor's appointment. During the visit, the physician asks a standard medical question: "How would you rate your pain on a scale of o to 10?" Whether you answer that it's a persistent, irksome 3 or a debilitating 9, you assume your doctor will treat you according to your need.

But for too many women, that's when a new kind of torment begins. Research suggests that health care providers are more likely to underestimate pain in women than in men, says Tina Doshi, M.D., an assistant professor of pain medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Doctors may be less likely to perceive a given score as the true reflection of a woman's experience, so an 8 out of 10 from a woman may prompt a different treatment than an 8 out of 10 from a man." This can occur regardless of physician gender and despite studies that show that women are beset by more painful conditions - we have more headaches, lower-back and neck pain and painful autoimmune diseases. Research also shows that we report higher pain scores than men for similar ailments, which suggests that we feel our discomfort more intensely.

Although women are more likely to suffer from chronic pain, studies indicate that stereotypes play into how women are treated in the exam room, and that can affect our care. In one study, when medical students and clinicians saw videos of patients in chronic pain, they estimated women's pain, on average, as lower than men's - and were more likely to recommend psychological treatment to women and analgesics to men.

People of color fare even worse. Black ER patients were 40% less likely than whites to receive any analgesics for acute pain, and Hispanic ER patients were 25% less likely, a 2019 review of 14 studies found. Those groups were also less likely to receive more powerful opiates.