School of Nursing Professor Awarded Grant

Hee Jun Kim, an associate professor at the George Washington University School of Nursing, has been awarded a grant by the National Institute of Nursing Research. The two-year, $460,625 grant is for a study into chronic pain disparities among Asian Americans.

The study aims to bridge critical knowledge gaps in pain disparity research by evaluating the feasibility and acceptability of a culturally tailored psychosocial pain education intervention for an underrepresented population, using the Korean American community as a model.

Kim's work focuses on racial and ethnic differences in health, specifically in disparities in pain sensitivity and chronic pain. Her program of research addresses underlying mechanisms of the differences in chronic pain across diverse racial and ethnic groups. She previously conducted a study exploring multi-dimensional correlates of chronic pain among Asians with various rheumatic diseases, funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea.