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It’s already difficult to find appropriate treatment for chronic pain. But a growing body of research shows that some groups are more likely than others to face diagnostic delays and undertreatment.
Physicians tend to “dismiss women’s pain a lot more than they do men’s,” says Penney Cowan, founder and chief executive of the American Chronic Pain Association. According to a 2014 online survey of more than 2,400 U.S. women with a variety of chronic pain conditions, 91 percent felt that the health-care system discriminates against female patients. Nearly half were told the pain was all in their head.
