HEAL Initiative Whole Joint Health Program

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is planning to publish a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the HEAL Initiative Whole Joint Health Program, which aims to support a phased mechanistic clinical research program focusing on understudied biological mechanisms that drive joint pain. The program will consist of two phases: Phase 1 will identify and validate multi-tissue mechanisms underlying joint pain, while Phase 2 will test non-pharmacological or multimodal interventions that directly target these mechanisms. The total project length cannot exceed 5 years. • The program will focus on joint pain affecting nearly half of adults in the United States. • The initiative responds to priorities identified in the 2023 HEAL Whole Joint Pain Workshop and supports the broader goals of the NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative. • The program will use a phased approach to accelerate the development of safe, accessible, non-addictive strategies that improve function, mobility, and quality of life for people with chronic joint pain. • The program will generate high-quality mechanistic evidence that supports whole joint and whole person models of care and contributes to nationwide efforts to reduce chronic pain and opioid dependence using non-pharmacological interventions and multimodal therapies.