The Consortium will encourage information sharing and collaborative research efforts, provide coordination of pain research across all NIH components and ensure that the results of NIH-supported pain research are widely communicated. The Conference brought together investigators in the field of pain research, Sex-Based biology, and sex differences in the nervous system. The conference was the first to be wholly devoted to this topic and highlighted the fact that gender can influence the amount and type of pain one experiences and the effectiveness of various treatments. The pain experience can be shaped by many factors related to gender that range from the biological to the behavioral and cultural. Women report pain more often and in more regions of the body than do men.
Women also tend to have more chronic pain problems than men.
However, as reported at the conference, women use more coping strategies to deal with their pain problems than do men. Gender differences in pain can be due both to anatomical differences between the sexes and chronic pain problems that disproportionately affect men and women. Identification of the biological factors that result in these types of pain problems will lead to important advances in both diagnostics and treatments. Within the female population, time of life can be an important factor in development and treatment of a persistent pain problem. Puberty, the child-bearing years, menopause and beyond create a unique hormonal milieu that is a likely contributing factor to the development of disease.