NIH HEAL Pain Management Effectiveness Research Network (ERN)

NIH hosted a pre-application interactive Q&A webinar for RFA-NS-20-028 –  NIH HEAL Pain Management Effectiveness Research Network: Clinical Trial Planning and Implementation Cooperative Agreement (UG3/UH3 Clinical Trial Required) and the slides are now available for download(pdf, 606 KB). In addition, our Frequently Asked Questions page has been updated to reflect questions received during the webinar. 

This multisite research cooperative will be part of the NIH HEAL (Helping to END Addiction Long-term) INITIATIVE to speed scientific solutions to the national opioid public health crisis. This broad research effort seeks to improve pain care through understanding the development of chronic pain and by accelerating and improving the process of therapy development to more rapidly move discoveries into clinical practice to alleviate the burden of pain.

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) RFA-NS-20-028 is to solicit cooperative agreement applications that propose clinical trials to establish the effectiveness of existing therapies and approaches for prevention and management of pain. The studies must address questions within the mission and research interests of participating NIH Institutes and Centers and evaluate preventive strategies or interventions including medications, biologics, procedures, medical and assistive devices and technologies, diagnostic testing, behavioral change, rehabilitation strategies,  complementary therapies, integrated approaches, and delivery system strategies in well controlled trials  The overall goal is to inform clinicians about the effectiveness of interventions that will improve functional outcomes and reduce pain across the continuum of acute to chronic pain associated with many types of diseases or conditions or pain presenting as a disease itself. Clinical trials will be conducted within the infrastructure of the HEAL Pain Management Effectiveness Research Network.