Women receiving worse treatment for back and neck pain – UK study

Current clinical guidance ignores the role women’s different skeleton size, hormones, experience of pregnancy or menopause can play in musculoskeletal pain. Photograph: Manusapon Kasosod/Getty Images

Women are receiving worse treatment for back and neck pain because their experiences are not factored into “male by default” clinical guidelines in the UK, research has found.

The NHS fails to acknowledge sex-specific considerations such as pain being more common among women in its model of care for non-surgical management of chronic neck and back pain, according to research from the University of Lancashire.