PROJECTS

Roth Awarded K01 Career Development Grant

Dr. Isabel Roth, DrPH, MS, Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation’s Program on Integrative Medicine, was recently awarded a K01* career development award from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Her mentorship team is led by Dr. Jennifer Leeman from the School of Nursing, Dr. Shabbar Ranapurwala and Dr. Justin Trogdon from the Gillings School of Public Health, Dr. Susan Gaylord from the School of Medicine, and Dr. Paula Gardiner from the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Dr. Roth’s project, titled “Scaling-up Integrative Pain Management in Federally Qualified Health Centers,” will seek to develop implementation strategies to effectively integrate Integrative Medical Group Visits into community health centers. Integrative Medical Group Visits provide training in mindfulness, nutrition, and other self-care techniques to patients with chronic pain, and are led by a billing provider and mindfulness or yoga instructor. Together with Dr. Jessica Barnhill and others, Dr. Roth helped launch Integrative Medical Group Visits at the UNC Center for Rehabilitation Care in 2020. Roth argues that they have the potential to make non-pharmacological pain management more accessible to underserved communities, which is particularly important in light of the ongoing opioid epidemic.