HR 51
Page 1
Date of Hearing: August 21, 2025
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON RULES
Blanca Pacheco, Chair
HR 51 (Schultz) – As Introduced July 17, 2025
SUBJECT: Pain Awareness Month and Women in Pain Awareness Day.
SUMMARY: Declares the month of September 2025 as Pain Awareness Month; and,
recognizes September 1, 2025, as Women in Pain Awareness Day to draw public attention to the
important need to raise awareness concerning gender disparities in pain assessment and treatment
in the United States. Specifically, this resolution makes the following legislative findings:
1) More than 100 million Americans live with chronic pain caused by various diseases or
disorders, and nearly 25 million Americans suffer from acute pain each year.
2) Though medical knowledge and technology exist to relieve or greatly ease pain, most pain is
untreated, undertreated, or improperly treated, and many health care professionals are still
unaware of how to effectively treat pain.
3) People who suffer from chronic pain are often stigmatized, marginalized, and uninformed
about the right to effective pain assessment and management, and most people with pain,
including those at the end of life, get little or no relief.
4) Women have a higher prevalence than men of syndromes and diseases associated with
chronic pain, such as fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, and migraine, and
women respond differently to certain analgesics.
5) Women have developed a number of coping mechanisms to deal with pain, and 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.
6) Women more frequently report pain to a health care provider, but are more likely to have
their pain reports discounted as emotional or psychogenic and, therefore, not real.
FISCAL EFFECT: This resolution is keyed non-fiscal by Legislative Counsel.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
None on file
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by: Michael Erke / RLS. / (916) 319-2800