Examining the Interactive Effects of Race, Gender, and Weight On Biases in Pain Perception and Treatment
Date
2023-05
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Decades of research demonstrate a variety of persistent and pervasive
disparities present in healthcare. As a result, members of various marginalized groups
(in particular, racial minorities) receive inadequate quality of care. One domain in
which such disparities have been well-documented is pain care. Recent work
demonstrates that disparities in pain care may stem from a host of factors, including
racial bias in the visual perception of pain. This perceptual bias, in turn, influences
recommendations of pain reliever medications, lowering hypothetical
recommendations made to Black (versus) White individuals. However, this prior
research has yet to consider the potential moderating influences of target weight and
target gender. As this thesis demonstrates, once these are added into the model, the
effect of target race on pain perception and treatment becomes more complex. Across
three experiments, target race, weight, and gender interacted to influence the
perception of pain. Racial bias in pain perception generalizes across weight within
female targets, but in male targets, the effect of target race is demonstrated to vary as a
function of target weight. In lighter-weight male targets, the typical racial bias in pain
perception is observed, while in heavier-weight male targets, racial bias in pain
perception was reduced, resulting in the hypothetical recommendation of more pain
reliever to heavier weight Black males. These results are considered in the context of
other work, examining how racialized stereotypes may vary as a function of target weight and gender. Taken together, this work extends prior research by demonstrating
that the effect of target race on the perception and treatment of pain varies by target
weight and gender.