Where Research Meets Healing

Talk to someone living with chronic pain, and you’ll quickly understand how much it reshapes their daily life. It can make it harder to work, manage daily tasks, stay connected to others, and feel well overall. Globally, one in five people live with ongoing pain. The burden is heavier for those who have been marginalized by race, income, geography and other barriers, resulting in limited access to high quality pain care.

A different approach to pain care

To help close those gaps, team members from the University of Minnesota’s Integrative Health & Wellbeing Research Program (IHWRP) at the Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing (CSH) are working with patient stakeholders to conduct two large NIH-funded community-focused research studies designed to explore the effectiveness of accessible, equitable, non-drug approaches to pain management.

RAMP (Reaching Rural Veterans: Applying Mind-Body Skills for Pain) is an ongoing NIH HEAL-funded research study that delivers telehealth-based pain care to rural veterans who often face long travel distances and limited access to providers. 

Partners4Pain is an NIH HEAL-funded, community-engaged research project that focuses on creating accessible, drug-free pain management programs for underserved populations.

Both studies take on chronic pain as a complex, whole-person experience, with care that is more accessible, collaborative, responsive to patients’ needs — and more aligned with what healing can look like in everyday life.

Why research matters for healing

Roni Evans, DC, MS, PhD, Director of IHWRP and one of the principal investigators for both RAMP and Partners4Pain, acknowledges that many people think of research as something separate from care. 

“I don’t think many people see research as an avenue to ‘healing,’ but these studies certainly are,” she says. 

In traditional healthcare settings, care often focuses narrowly on managing disease or symptoms rather than fostering healing. It is often limited by several factors like what insurance will cover, and what providers have knowledge of or have time for. Research, by contrast, creates space to do things differently. It can help identify more effective ways to improve health and to address the full experience of living with pain, not just the physical symptoms, Dr. Evans explains.

Historically, research has often been designed by researchers in isolation, with limited input from the people it aims to serve. IWHRP researchers, with their collaborators, took a different path, grounded in engagement, listening, and relationship-building from the very beginning. 

“Through this process, trust is built, and over time, shared responsibility,” Dr. Evans says. “When it’s done well, participants help shape how a study is conducted, participate in decision-making, and help share the results. Participants, community members, and researchers become partners.”

RAMP: Bringing care closer to home

The RAMP study, led by Dr. Evans, Katherine (Katie) Hadlandsmyth, PhD, and Diana Burgess, PhD, is a two-phase trial that began with a pilot study and has now moved into a larger randomized trial. In the initial phase, the team delivered a structured pain self-management program directly to 40 rural veterans in their homes. The program used 12 telehealth sessions facilitated by health coach facilitators; it combined an individual session with the coach followed by group sessions featuring education, movement, and mind-body strategies.

Funded by an NIH grant through the NIH HEAL Initiative, RAMP was designed in close partnership with VA systems and veteran advisory groups. Dr. Evans notes that this approach reflects a shift toward “authentic partnering,” where researchers and patients build relationships early to ensure the work is grounded in real-world needs. 

A focus on access shaped the program itself. “Because rural Veterans may face unique access barriers to receiving multicomponent pain self-management interventions, we wanted to create a remotely accessible ‘one-stop shop,’” says Dr. Hadlandsmyth. The group-based format also helps foster connection, she adds, maximizing both peer support and accountability.

Rather than focusing solely on reducing pain, the program aims to help participants regain a sense of control and possibility, a key part of the healing process. “Developing chronic pain can have a profound negative effect on people’s lives and sense of self,” Dr. Hadlandsmyth says. “Interventions like RAMP help people build the competence and confidence to reclaim their lives.”

In the pilot phase, participants reported high satisfaction with the program, along with increased confidence in managing their pain and incorporating movement into their daily lives, which are early signs of meaningful healing. Participants also provided important feedback on how to optimize the programs. The research team has now moved into the second phase, a larger randomized trial of 500 Veterans comparing the optimized program to usual medical care.

Partners4Pain: research shaped by community

Partners4Pain offers two, nine-week programs offered in person, and through telehealth, to help people better understand and manage chronic pain. Participants meet weekly in small groups, either in person or virtually, to learn and practice different mind-body strategies (like mindfulness, relaxed breathing, guided imagery),and gentle movement. Group discussions offer peer support. 

From the start, Partners4Pain was designed to be community-based and co-created. The work began with forming an advisory group and reaching out to people with pain to listen and learn, and to ensure the programs reflected community needs and lived experiences. Central to this approach was treating participants as equal partners in the research process.

Early results from a pilot group of 51 participants reflect both its impact and emphasis on trust. Most participants reported improvements in their pain and daily functioning, and nearly all said they felt respected and treated as partners. For many, the shift was deeper than symptom relief, bringing a renewed sense of hope and a clearer sense of what healing could look like for them.

Led by Dr. Evans and Brent Leininger, DC, PhD, Partners4Pain is supported by a $6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part of the HEAL initiative. They are joined by other researchers, a well-established community advisory team, and consultants representing partner organizations including Hue-MAN Partnership, YMCA of the North, NorthPoint Health & Wellness. The Robert J. Jones Urban Research and Outreach Engagement Center (UROC) also serves as a key bridge between the University of Minnesota and community members.  

A two-way bridge

Adriano Udani is the research director of UROC. For Udani, the relationship between community and research should move in both directions. “When I think about a bridge, I think of people who can travel across it both ways,” he says, reflecting a model where community members help shape not just the programs, but the meaning drawn from them.

As he puts it, participants “are involved in all stages of research from beginning to end.” Just as important, Udani adds, is what happens after the study concludes. It means ensuring something lasting remains for the community, including knowledge, programs, and resources that people can continue to use. That kind of continuity helps extend the impact of the work, supporting healing not just during the program, but long after it ends.

What partnership looks like in practice

Velma Harris is one of the program facilitators of the Partners4Pain programs. She is also an instructor at the YMCA of the North. “My job is not to tell people what to do, but to guide them, so they can see what might work for them,” she says.

She sees the real-world impacts of the Partners4Pain programs on people’s lives. Many participants start the program feeling isolated and uncertain. “They feel like they’re on an island by themselves,” she explains. That begins to shift. “When people come in and say, ‘I couldn’t do this before, and now I can,’ that’s a success. That’s when you know something is changing.”

Just as important, she says, is what happens beyond the physical changes. Participants begin to feel heard and respected, forming a sense of community where they learn from one another and build trust. Harris works to create a space where people feel safe, supported, and free from judgment, with no pressure to perform. “People need to feel honored, validated, and respected,” she says. “That’s when they begin to open up.” 

Over time, that openness becomes a turning point, and participants begin to take an active role in their own healing. She sees them carrying the tools they learn in the Partners4Pain programs into their lives, helping them manage their pain, communicate more openly with family, set boundaries, and advocate for their own needs.

Research that builds connection

What is emerging from both RAMP and Partners4Pain is not just a new model of pain care, but a different way of thinking about research: rooted in trust, partnership, and lived experiences. For Adriano Udani, pain is often just the starting point. “Pain is such a proximate issue — it affects people’s everyday lives,” he says. Once people begin talking about it, it opens up conversations about many other aspects of life, says Udani. Over time, he adds, “pain and pain management become a way of connecting and building relationships” beyond the program itself.

The connection is part of what makes this work different. When people feel heard, respected, and involved in shaping their care, they are more likely to engage, trust the process, and carry what they learn into their daily lives. For many participants, especially those who have historically been underrepresented in research, that experience alone can be meaningful. It can begin to shift what healing looks like. 

These programs do more than help people manage pain. They create space for connection, for understanding, and healing that extends beyond the individual, into relationships, communities, and the broader fabric of everyday life. As a result, research becomes more than a way to test interventions. It becomes a way to support healing for individuals and communities in real time.

Citations

Zhu, M., Zhang, J., Liang, D., Qiu, J., Fu, Y., Zeng, Z., Han, J., Zheng, J., & Lin, L. (2025). Global and regional trends and projections of chronic pain from 1990 to 2035: Analyses based on global burden of diseases study 2019. British journal of pain, 19(2), 125–137. https://doi.org/10.1177/20494637241310697 

World Health Organization supports global effort to relieve chronic pain. (2004, October 11). WHO | Regional Office for Africa. https://www.afro.who.int/news/world-health-organization-supports-global-effort-relieve-chronic-pain