THE Gender Pain Gap

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 0 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