To explore the factors that influence provider pain treatment decision‐making and the receipt of pain management by injured Black patients in the United States.

We completed a systematic mixed studies review using a results‐based convergent synthesis design.

PubMed, SCOPUS and CINAHL were searched for articles published between 2007–2017 using the search terms ‘African American’, ‘Black American’, ‘race’, ‘pain treatment’, ‘pain management’ and ‘analgesia’. Twenty studies were included in this review.

A search of databases and hand‐searching identified peer‐reviewed published papers. The Mixed Method Appraisal Tool was used to appraise the studies.

The results indicate that healthcare provider characteristics, racial myths about pain sensitization and assumed criminality all impact provider treatment decision‐making and the receipt of pain treatment by injured Black patients.

This review addresses racial disparities in pain management by focusing on the factors that impact the receipt of pain treatment by injured Black patients. The findings will have an impact on providers who prescribe pain treatment and on the patients they treat. These findings suggest that assumed criminality of certain patients can negatively impact care, which is a type of bias not frequently explored or discussed in health disparities research. This review will help inform further research in healthcare disparities and prompt providers to examine their assumptions about the patients for whom they care.

These results provide important areas for further study, including how assumed criminality of certain patients can have a negative impact on care.