BILL NUMBER: SR 29	ENROLLED
	BILL TEXT

	ADOPTED IN SENATE  MAY 27, 2008
	ADOPTED IN ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY   Senator Kuehl

                        MAY 7, 2008

   Relative to Women In Pain Awareness Day.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
             HOUSE OR SENATE RESOLUTIONS DO NOT CONTAIN A DIGEST



   WHEREAS, Research indicates that men and women experience pain
differently; that women experience and report both more frequent and
greater pain but do not receive greater, or, in many cases, even
equally effective treatment for their pain as that received by men;
and
   WHEREAS, Although a number of factors contribute to this
undertreatment, the literature supports the conclusion that there are
gender-based biases regarding women's pain experiences which have
led health care providers to discount women's self-reports of pain
until they are satisfied that there is objective evidence identifying
the cause of the pain; and
   WHEREAS, Medicine's focus on objective factors and its cultural
stereotypes of women combine to leave women at greater risk for
inadequate pain relief and continued suffering; and
   WHEREAS, Women have a higher prevalence than men of chronic pain
syndromes and diseases associated with chronic pain, such as
fibromyalgia, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, or osteoarthritis, and
women respond differently to certain analgesics; and
   WHEREAS, Women's pain reports are taken less seriously than those
of men and women receive less aggressive treatment than men for their
pain; and
   WHEREAS, Although women have developed a number of coping
mechanisms to deal with pain, this may contribute to a general
perception that they can endure more pain and that their pain does
not need to be taken as seriously; and
   WHEREAS, Although women more frequently report pain to a health
care provider, they are more likely to have their pain reports
discounted as emotional or psychogenic and, therefore, not real; and
   WHEREAS, Subjective response to painful stimuli is an accurate
indication of pain experienced according to a study published in June
2003, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; and
   WHEREAS, Women are socialized to attend more to their physical
appearance, and are more likely than men to have health care
providers assume they are not in pain if they look more physically
attractive; and
   WHEREAS, Men with chronic pain are more likely to delay seeking
treatment, but generally receive a more aggressive response by health
care providers once they enter the health care system; and
   WHEREAS, Both men and women are more likely to have the emotional
or psychological component of their pain experience suppressed due to
Western medicine's tendency to separate mind and body and to view
objective, biological facts as more credible than subjective
feelings; and
   WHEREAS, It is necessary to begin educating health care providers
and those who train them to expose biases that lead to the
undertreatment of women in pain; and
   WHEREAS, Medical schools should endorse and teach students an
approach that best elicits the concerns of any patient in pain and
does not discount the patient's subjective reports of pain, which
will require attentiveness to the emotional aspects of the patient's
reports of pain; and
   WHEREAS, Quality care evaluators, as well as institutional ethics
committees, need to provide increased scrutiny and raise awareness of
the current bias in the pain treatment of women; now, therefore, be
it
   Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, That the Senate
recognizes May 30, 2008, as Women In Pain Awareness Day and draw the
attention of the public to the important need to raise awareness
concerning gender disparity in pain assessment and treatment in the
United States; and be it further
   Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this
resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.