Different Races Feel Pain Differently

Posting Date: 10/01/2003

Racial, Ethnic Disparities Seen in All Types of Pain

No matter what its cause, pain of any kind can place a serious burden on a person?s ability to work, play and live life. But this burden of pain is heavier for some than for others ? and a new research paper finds that members of racial and ethnic minorities often bear the worst of it.

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The paper, written by a panel of top pain experts and based on a survey of more than 180 pain-related studies from a broad range of specialties, documents a phenomenon that pain specialists have long suspected but don?t fully understand.

The authors pull together research on racial and ethnic disparities in the perception, diagnosis and treatment of pain in locations ranging from the emergency department to the cancer clinic, and in conditions ranging from chronic pain to acute pain induced in laboratory experiments.

Researchers and pain specialists who are also members of the American Pain Society publish their findings in the current issue of the journal Pain Medicine.

?Across the board, and consistently, there are racial and ethnic differences in pain,? says lead author Carmen R. Green, M.D., an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist at the University of Michigan Health System. ?There?s much we still don?t understand about why these health disparities based upon race and ethnicity exist, so more research is needed. We hope our work will increase awareness of this issue among patients and providers alike.? Green chairs the APS Special Interest Group on racial and ethnic disparities in pain.

The new paper echoes the recently published findings from the Institute of Medicine?s panel on health disparities, which collected evidence of racial and ethnic differences in many areas of medical and surgical care.

The IOM panel?s report included some perspective on differences in emergency and cancer pain treatment. But the new paper goes further by including data from more fields, including chronic pain and disability, and considering pain medication access issues. It also offers recommendations for future research.