First R21 Grant Awarded to Primary PI at GW Nursing

The National Institute of Nursing Research has awarded Hee Jun Kim, PhD, RN, a two-year, $460,625 grant to address chronic pain disparities among Asian Americans in the community. This is the first R21 grant awarded to a to a contact or primary PI at GW Nursing. The study aims to fill critical knowledge gaps in pain disparity research. It seeks to provide evidence of feasibility and acceptability of a culturally-tailored psychosocial pain education intervention for an underrepresented population, using the Korean-American community as an exemplar.

Dr. Kim will be collaborating with multidisciplinary experts in pain and community-based participatory research, as well as with Korean-American community partners. Co-investigators include Drs. Kathleen Griffith and Laurie Theeke from GW Nursing, as well as  Dr. Calia Morais from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Dr. Hee-Soon Juon from Thomas Jefferson University. Achieving the study’s goals will demonstrate for the first time that a nurse-led, community-based psychosocial education intervention to reduce chronic pain for the underrepresented Korean-American population may be feasible and acceptable, forming the basis for a larger efficacy trial to test the tailored intervention.