How America’s Health Care System Fails Women in Pain

September 23, 2024

black and white image of a woman looking down

(The Hill) – Falzone, a journalist and endometriosis advocate, is one of more than 50 million Americans who grapple with chronic pain, the vast majority of whom are women. Women bear a disproportionate amount of pain over the course of their lives. They’re more likely to suffer from a wide array of painful conditions, including not only those that involve the female reproductive system, like endometriosis, but also everything from rheumatoid arthritis to fibromyalgia to migraines. Hundreds of studies have shown that they’re more sensitive to pain than men. They report feeling pain more often and more intensely.

They’re also more likely to seek help for their pain than men are. And yet: Far from healing pain’s gender gap, the health care system appears to be making it worse. (Read More)