Funded Projects

Chronic pain is a persistent source of disability and reduced quality of life for aging adults. Chronic pain-related outcomes are disproportionately worse for aging African Americans, who report greater pain severity and worse pain-related disability compared to White peers. A significant pain risk factor for African Americans is chronic stress (including family-related stress), which is worsened by structural inequities that affect this population. Although many African Americans identify family support as critical for pain self-management, this influence has not been studied thoroughly. This project will study how pain conditions develop and persist for aging African Americans by analyzing existing data from African American participants in two large aging studies: Midlife in the U.S. (721 participants) and the Health and Retirement Study (2,698 participants). The research aims to determine how family emotional climate affects pain risk, taking into account structural factors like discrimination, socioeconomic disparity, and the influence of various neighborhood settings.

Many people with opioid use disorder (OUD) also have a serious mental illness and other chronic conditions, which can be difficult for individuals and primary care providers to manage. A chronic disease self-management program is an established health care model in which peers help to educate patients about their condition(s) and build problem-solving skills to manage their health. Such programs have been effective in other populations and settings, but they have not been adapted for primary care patients who have OUD and SMI. This project will adapt and test a chronic disease self-management program for this population to understand its feasibility, acceptability, impact, and how best to put such programs into place widely in primary care settings.

Although medication-based treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) can effectively reduce overdose risk and improve health outcomes, most people discontinue treatment too soon. Peer support specialists, who are individuals with direct experience with a substance use disorder, can offer social support to help individuals with OUD overcome barriers to treatment and recovery. This project will develop, deliver, and evaluate an innovative peer support specialist intervention to help individuals begin and stay in a treatment program. The research will focus on rural populations and underserved communities, using a dynamic modeling framework to prioritize at-risk communities for treatment offered through mobile health clinics.