Documenting Race and Gender Biases in Pain Assessment and a Novel Intervention Designed to Reduce Biases

Abstract

Disparities in pain care are well-documented such that women and people of color have their pain undertreated and underestimated compared to men and White people. One of the contributors of the undertreatment of pain for people of color and women may be the inaccurate assessment of pain. Understanding the pain assessment process is an important step in evaluating the magnitude of and intervening on pain disparities in care. In the current work, we focus on documenting intersectional race and gender biases in pain assessment and present results of a novel intervention for reducing these biases. Across three studies (N = 532) and a mini meta-analysis using real videotaped people in pain as stimuli, we demonstrate that observers disproportionately underestimated women of color’s pain compared to all other groups (men of color, White women, and White men). In Study 3 (N = 232), we show that a novel intervention focused on behavioral skill building (i.e., practice and immediate feedback) significantly reduced observers’ pain assessment biases towards marginalized groups compared to all other types of trainings (raising awareness of societal biases, raising awareness of self-biases, and a control condition). While it is an open question as to how long this type of intervention lasts, behavioral skills building around assessing marginalized people’s pain more accurately is a promising training tool for healthcare professionals. PerspectiveThis article demonstrates the underestimation of pain among people of color and women. We also found support that a novel intervention reduced observers’ pain assessment biases towards marginalized groups. This could be used in medical education or clinical care to reduce intersectional pain care disparities.