Do you identify as Black and have lived experience with chronic pain? Your voice can help contribute to more inclusive and community informed research in Canada. We're also looking to connect with and speak to community organizations serving Black communities.

Huge congrats to PEPR team member Dennis Osei Nimo ANNOR for successfully defending his PhD thesis, "Exclusion or Empowerment: The Role of Sports as a Tool for Social Inclusion in Ghana for Persons Who Experience Disability" at Western University!

Would you like to know more about the work of the #PEPRPartnership? On October 5th, we'll be hosting a Research Day at Hart House, University of Toronto. If you want to spend a day learning about the innovative and inclusive research we're doing on chronic pain and marginalization, please register.

📢 Registration is now open for the Critical Approaches to Pain Scholarship (CAPS) Research Network Conference 2026: Decolonising Pain. 📅 24–26 September 2026 📍 University of Manchester, UK (with hybrid participation available) Registration: In-person - lnkd.in/gRy39TXA Online - lnkd.in/g5P3TYUR

Check out our July 2026 newsletter! We review the last few months, celebrate accomplishments, and look forward to upcoming events and opportunities. ☀️Happy summer from everyone here at #PeprPartnership and please reach out any time if you'd like to learn more about our work.

Check out some highlights from PEPR's symposium at the Canadian Pain Society 2026 Annual Scientific Meeting! Leave a comment or connect with us if you'd like to learn more about the work we're doing at #PeprPartnership. youtu.be/_ANmJE9TqT8

Critical Approaches to Chronic Pain Research: Insights from Research with Marginalized Communities

YouTube video by PEPR Partnership

youtu.be

Desmond Williams and Kate Rice chatted with Shane Hewitt and The Nightshift! We're grateful for this conversation about the very personal experience of chronic pain and the questions we might ask in the pursuit of a more equitable, person-centered care system. youtube.com/watch?v=yK4P...

Living with chronic pain: "You don't get a day off"

YouTube video by Newstalk 580 CFRA

youtube.com

"We are brilliant at diagnosing the body in pain. But we are systematically failing to diagnose the social body in pain." Check out this narrative performance by Nayena Sen, part of Storyhouse at Western University! storyhouse.substack.com/p/gendered-w...

Gendered Worlds of Pain: The Diagnosis We're Missing

"We are brilliant at diagnosing the body in pain. But we are systematically failing to diagnose the social body in pain."

storyhouse.substack.com

🎙️New episode - Living Proof: Experience as Evidence in Pain Research Episode 4: Engaging Marginalized POWer, Expertise, and Representation: EMPOWER 🔗YOUTUBE: youtu.be/6m6lR_atoAk 🔗SPOTIFY: open.spotify.com/episode/6L1B... 🔗APPLE: podcasters.spotify.com/.../Episode-....

⏩SNEAK PREVIEW⏪ Here's a clip from our latest episode, dropping next week. You know Desmond Williams and Emerald Asuncion are the visionaries and co-hosts of Living Proof: Experience as Evidence in Pain Research, but did you know they also co-chair #PeprPartnership's EMPOWER Committee?

Congrats to Karime Mescouto who participated in the Postdoctoral Research Sprint at the Postdoctoral Forum at Western University! Participants had to share their research in 120 seconds in a way that is engaging and easy to understand. Karime came in third and won the People’s Choice award. Bravo! 🏆

Check out PEPR Co-Director Desmond Williams on Just Asking with Saroja Coelho on CBC discussing pain management, common myths, and how people and places can better support people living with chronic pain. www.cbc.ca/listen/live-... #PeprPartnership

Just Asking with Saroja Coelho | Live Radio | CBC Listen

You’ve got smart questions, we’ve got solid answers. If googling got you nowhere, you can always call your friend Saroja Coelho. With guest experts, Just Asking turns the week’s news and latest trends...

cbc.ca

Ready for our symposium! #CanadianPain26

Came down this morning to a new addition to our #PeprPartnership booth 🫑 #CanadianPain26

We hope you will visit our #PeprPartnership booth in the exhibitor hall. We’re sharing our many studies and projects an we’d love to chat with fellow attendees about how we can support each other’s work. #CanadianPain26

We are thrilled to be together with so many esteemed colleagues and friends at #CanadianPain26! Please join us for our symposium, “Critical Approaches to Pain Research: Insights from Research with Structurally Marginalized Communities.”

🎙️NEW - Living Proof: Experience as Evidence in Pain Research Episode 3, part 2: Cultural Pathways to Meaningful Engagement with Dr Vanessa Ambtman-Smith 🔗YOUTUBE: youtu.be/XLn_V46sjxM 🔗SPOTIFY: open.spotify.com/episode/3LTI... 🔗APPLE: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/e...

Episode 3 , Part 2: Cultural Pathways to Meaningful Engagement

YouTube video by PEPR Partnership

youtu.be

We're please to share our first quarterly newsletter of 2026! We're already having a great, productive year at #PEPRPartnership. Please have a look, and connect with us if you have questions or ideas about our research.

New publication! Congrats to Kathleen Rice, Ginetta Salvalaggio, Laura Connoy, and Fiona Webster on their new publication in SSM - Qualitative Research in Health. Trapped in the labyrinth: The structural violence of disability support for people with chronic pain Read it: doi.org/10.1016/j.ss...

Congrats to Laura Connoy, Kathleen Rice, Craig Dale, Abhimanyu Sud, Ross Upshur, Joel Katz, Andrew Pinto, and Fiona Webster on their new publication in Qualitative Health Research. Read it here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Congratulations to Karime Mescouto for receiving this year's @canadianpain.bsky.social Trainee Travel Award. We are all looking forward to this year's Annual Scientific Meeting in Quebec City! #PeprPartnership #CanadianPain26

40% of male veterans and 50% of female veterans are affected by chronic pain, yet sex and gender have been overlooked in the research. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

'We have failed them': studies overlook sex, gender in veteran pain care | CBC News

A recent study on chronic pain management for Canadian veterans has uncovered a critical flaw in decades of research: Not a single one examined the impact of sex or gender on treatment effectiveness.

cbc.ca

🎙️NEW EPISODE: Cultural Pathways to Meaningful Engagement. Desmond Williams and Emerald Asuncion welcome Dr. Vanessa Ambtman-Smith to the PEPR podcast. Check it out and subscribe to #LivingProofPodcast: 🔗YOUTUBE: tinyurl.com/5c33p748 🔗SPOTIFY: tinyurl.com/muv3f4n2 🔗APPLE: tinyurl.com/2pwkjkwp

🎙️EPISODE 3 PREVIEW Dr. Vanessa Ambtman-Smith discusses her project - Weaving Indigenous Knowledge into Pain Research: Cultural Pathways to Meaningful Engagement. Please subscribe! 🔗YOUTUBE: lnkd.in/gkmabJcS 🔗SPOTIFY: lnkd.in/gG5hp-q9 🔗APPLE: lnkd.in/gHpeXRx8 #PeprPartnership#LivingProofPodcast

Happy holidays from all of us at PEPR! We are so grateful for all of the connections we've made across our growing network and for all of the progress we made together in 2025. Wishing you and yours a great holiday season. See you in 2026 🥂

We're pleased to share our December newsletter! 2025 has been a productive year for the #PEPRPartnership. We’ve added new team members and made important progress on projects and initiatives. Please have a look, and connect with us if you have questions or ideas about our research.

Get to know PEPR 🫑 To learn more about #PeprPartnership, visit www.pepr-partnership.org

🎙️Episode 2, Part 2: Why Do We Need an EDID Lens in Pain Research? Inclusive Language, Structural Violence, and the Power of Community Check it out and subscribe to #LivingProofPodcast on your favourite platform: 🔗YOUTUBE: shorturl.at/TnwVC 🔗SPOTIFY: shorturl.at/ovpHX 🔗APPLE: shorturl.at/S0P8v

🎙️PODCAST PREVIEW Living Proof: Experience as Evidence in Pain Research Part 2 of Episode 2 - Why Do We Need an EDID Lens in Pain Research? Our language around pain overlooks the collective impact of colonization. Stay tuned for the latest episode of #LivingProofPodcast from #PeprPartnership.

If we aim to truly #PriortizePain, all experiences and communities must be engaged. At PEPR, we’re developing a culturally responsive framework for engaging Indigenous patients that bridges academic methodologies with Indigenous healing practices and knowledge systems. #NPAW2025 #PeprPartnership