Duke Pain Early-phase Research Clinical Center (PERCC) Abstract Managing persistent pain has long been a difficult challenge, one that is heightened by the recent opiate use crisis and the SAR-CoV2 pandemic. Because of racial and ethnic differences in how pain is experienced and treated by providers, it is key to include diverse populations in early phase trials of interventions for pain. Motivations for participating in pain research may differ from other conditions. Furthermore, interventions for research staff to improve participant diversity have been understudied. In this proposal, we will leverage existing experience and community partnerships to learn the best ways to recruit and engage Black and Latinx populations into EPPIC-Net trials. We will also institute a previously developed curriculum for researchers to improve awareness of diversity concepts. Through the proposed aims, we will enhance performance of the original parent grant’s aims through better understanding of participant motivations and enablers from a diverse population.

Duke Pain Early-phase Research Clinical Center (PERCC) Supplement for Strategies to Increase Participant Diversity, Inclusion and Engagement in Clinical Studies Narrative The HEAL Initiative EPPIC-Net network was created to “enhance the treatment of acute and chronic pain and reduce reliance on opioids by accelerating early-phase clinical trials of non-addictive treatments for pain”. However due to racial and ethnic differences in the experience and treatment of pain recruiting and retaining a diverse, representative patient sample is crucial to obtain a complete understanding of the effectiveness of any proposed intervention. In this proposal, we leverage existing community partnerships and collaborate with experienced co-investigators to adapt existing strategies for community engagement for early phase pain research, Examine the effect of engagement strategies on research participants’ and staffs’ experience, and develop a toolkit for disseminating our findings to the rest of EPPIC-Net