BACPAC

Under the Helping to End Addiction Long-termSM Initiative, or NIH HEAL InitiativeSM, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded 14 grants, totaling more than $150 million, to form the Back Pain Consortium (BACPAC) Research Program. This program includes mechanistic research studies, novel technology development programs, clinical trials, and a Data Integration, Algorithm Development and Operations Management Center (DAC). BACPAC is a translational, patient-centered effort established to address the need for effective and personalized therapies for chronic low back pain and to gain a better understanding of the biological, psychological, and socio-environmental factors that cause chronic lower back pain.

BACPAC research is conducted through collaborations within the network and with researchers in other institutions. The DAC, housed at the UNC Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center (CSCC), provides operational support and coordination for the entire network. In addition to these responsibilities, the DAC at the CSCC hosts a highly secure, cloud-based data warehouse and analytics platform, the BACPAC Data Portal. This data portal provides a mechanism through which BACPAC investigators and other researchers can actively work together on research and analyses using the data generated by BACPAC. The DAC also serves as the data coordinating center for a large, consortium-wide precision medicine trial designed and developed as a joint effort among CSCC faculty, additional faculty in the Department of Biostatistics within the Gillings School of Global Public Health, faculty from the UNC School of Medicine, and other thought leaders across BACPAC.