An overview of ethnic and gender differences in pain sensation

Increasing amounts of clinical and experimental evidence show differences in pain responses between different ethnic groups. At the same time, the experience of pain is characterized by immense inter-individual and group variability with one likely contributing factor being ethnicity. Synergistically, pain and ethnicity are multidimensional, malleable and shaped by culture. Although there is no consensus regarding the underlying mechanisms, ethnic group differences inevitably reflect a holistic influence of biological, psychological and socio-cultural factors. Numerous studies, investigating a wide variety of painful conditions, have also suggested gender differences in pain perception. Particularly, epidemiologic and clinical findings clearly demonstrate that women are at increased risk for chronic pain and some data suggest that women may experience more severe clinical pain. Studies of experimentally induced pain have produced a very consistent pattern of results, with women exhibiting greater pain sensitivity, enhanced pain facilitation and reduced pain inhibition compared with men, though the magnitude of these sex differences varies across studies.