| September is Pain Awareness Month. Pain is a high-priority research topic for the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). We are currently playing key roles in several major National Institutes of Health (NIH) pain research initiatives: Were partnering with several other Institutes and Centers at NIH, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs to support the Pain Management Collaboratory, which is conducting 11 large-scale studies to evaluate nondrug approaches for pain management in the military and veterans health care systems. Our Center is leading or co-leading several programs within the Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative, including the Pragmatic and Implementation Studies for the Management of Pain to Reduce Opioid Prescribing (PRISM) program and a research program on biomarkers for myofascial pain. Were also leading the NIH Pain Research Center, located within the NIH Clinical Center, which brings together researchers from across NIH to identify specific pain mechanisms, study nonopioid treatments for pain, and predict individual responses to pain therapies. | 