The NIH has announced an intent to publish new funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) for 5 or more embedded pragmatic clinical trials that address pain management and the opioid crisis. These projects will become part of the NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory as phased UG3/UH3 cooperative research. Both FOAs will be published in early December with applications due as early as February 2019.

The two notices are:

• Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trials of Acupuncture for Management of Chronic Low Back Pain in Older Adults
  • 2 or more large-scale, embedded pragmatic trials that evaluate acupuncture treatment of older adults (65 years and older) with chronic low back pain.
• Pragmatic and Implementation Studies for the Management of Pain to Reduce Opioid Prescribing (PRISM)
  • 3 or more large-scale embedded pragmatic trials or implementation studies designed to improve pain management and reduce unnecessary opioid prescriptions.

The announcements are part of the NIH Heal (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) Initiative, which was created in April 2018 in an effort to speed scientific solutions for addressing the national opioid public health crisis.