Statistics and Sources

• The term medical gaslighting is a key component of the pain gap. It is when doctors dismiss or minimize a patients symptoms or make a patient feel unseen and misunderstood. 

• In 1986 the NIH made a policy that encouraged the inclusion of women in clinical studies. 

• The NIH Revitalization Act was passed in 1993 that made it law to include women in clinical studies. 

• There are multiple chronic pain conditions that predominantly affect women, and having one increases the risk of getting the others. 

• 8/10 medications taken off the market by the FDA between 1997 and 2000 were taken off because they posed a greater health risk to women. 

• Some studies show that women feel more intense pain than men. 

• Women are more likely to have heart attack symptoms not related to chest pain.

• 22.1% of women suffer from chronic pain (That's over 28 million people)

• Between 80-90% of fibromyalgia patients are women.

• 1 in 5 Americans Suffer from chronic pain.

• Some women wait as long as 7 years before being properly diagnosed.

• In the US alone 40-80 thousand people die each year due to diagnostic errors.

Medical bias is an issue that disproportionately effects women. But we cannot talk about this bias without acknowledging that there are groups of people within this catagory that are further disproportionately affected. Race, ethnic babackground, sexuality, sexual orientation, religion, class, language, and education can all have an amplifying impact on the bias. One major factor of this is race. Black, African American, Asian, Asian American, Pacific Islanders, Native American/Indigenous peoples, Latino, Hispanic, and multiracial people often face extreme bias. They frequently recieve worse medical care, are not well represented in clinical studies, and face blatant racisism in the medical industry. Ethnic background and religion also signifigantly impact quality of care. Living in poverty frequently signifigantly decreases health and access to appropriate care. LGBTQ+ individuals also face signifigant discrimination and disparity. These are just some os the issues that cause a broader gap in care. But this is an issue that must be discussed and is important not to overlook. We need to acknowledge these disparities while we acknowledge how women and those assigned female at birth as a whole, are affected by the pain gap. 

Since the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a noticable rise in the number of younger disabled individuals. This can be contibuted to the association of long covid with a multitude of chronic conditions. Long covid and complications with covid are highly linked to conditions like myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), dysautonomia, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), fibromyalgia, chronic migraines, mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), lupus, anxiety, depression, and various other disorders. This impact has resulted in a signifgantly higher number of people with these conditions. Awareness has been raised on many social media platforms and the use of mobility aids in yound individuals is an effect that is commonly seen due to these imopacts. While the awareness of these conditions is important, it has also led to critisism. Many people assume these conditions are fake or that a majority of people claiming to have it are faking, and that people say they have these condtions because it is supposedly cool. Individiuals assigned female at birth are at a higher risk of these complications and the rise of disability since covid has made it somewhat harder to seek care. Because of the online influence individuals with these conditions are frequently dismissed and assumed to be lying. These condtions can also be difficult to diagnose due to the need to exclude other problems. It is vital now more than ever to believe women's pain and to contribute to stopping the disparities they face in the medical system.