My lab conducts research on the biopsychosocial aspects of pain and functioning in humans. We study providers of pain care, patients who experience pain, and healthy laypersons.
- On the provider side, we use computer-simulated patients and environments to test hypotheses about the factors that influence pain judgments and treatment decisions. In this work, we are particularly interested in examining the mechanisms that underlie disparities in pain care, and in developing targeted interventions that improve providers' pain treatment decisions
- On the patient side, we have several ongoing projects in the Pain Clinic at Riley Children's Hospital, the Primary Care Clinic at Eskenazi Health, and the Indiana Polyclinic (a freestanding, multidisciplinary pain facility). For example, at Riley Children's Hospital, we are examining how child and parent injustice perceptions about pain influence pain-related outcomes over time. At Eskenazi Health, we are examining how adults with chronic pain prioritize their symptoms and evaluate treatment effectiveness - this work will inform a future intervention to facilitate shared decision-making between patients and providers. At Indiana Polyclinic, we are examining how social factors influence patients' decisions to seek pain-related disability compensation
- Our work with healthy laypersons uses laboratory-based quantitative sensory testing, which allows us to manipulate the pain stimulus and key psychosocial factors (e.g., participants' pain-related expectations and coping strategies) to examine how these factors influence pain. We are a multidisciplinary lab and collaborate frequently with colleagues in Medicine, Nursing, Communication Science, Informatics, and Social Psychology
