# REACH Participant Diversity Program

> **NIH NIH U19** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2021 · $605,502

## Abstract

Project Summary
The UCSF Core Center for Patient-centric Mechanistic Phenotyping in Chronic Low Back Pain (REACH) is a
U-19 Back Pain Consortium (BACPAC) Mechanistic Research Center (MRC), funded by the Helping to End
Addiction Long-term (HEAL) initiative. As an MRC, REACH is focused on discovery of chronic low back pain
(cLBP) mechanisms, generating data for deep phenotyping, and developing algorithms that allow targeting of
therapies to individual patients. REACH is led by Jeffrey Lotz, PhD, the David S. Bradford M.D. Endowed
Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery at UCSF, and Vice Chair of Research within the Department, and Conor O'Neill,
MD, Director of the Department's Non-Operative Spine Program. Other REACH investigators include
collaborators at UC Davis, UC Irvine, and UC San Diego.
The UCSF Core Center for Patient-centric Mechanistic Phenotyping in Chronic Low Back Pain (REACH) is a U-
19 Back Pain Consortium (BACPAC) Mechanistic Research Center (MRC), funded by HEAL. As an MRC,
REACH is focused on discovery of cLBP mechanisms and phenotypes, which will ultimately lead to precision
medicine for cLBP.
REACH is conducting two longitudinal cohort studies, comeBack and BackHome. In both studies, data elements
from psychological, biological, and social domains are measured. BackHome is a site-less, digital study that
does not require an in-person visit. All data is collected from patient surveys (i.e., light phenotyping). In
comeBack, light phenotyping is augmented by a number of deep phenotyping measures that require an in-person
visit (e.g., MRI, physical function testing, quantitative sensory testing, blood draw). The duration of each study
is two years. The target enrollment for comeBack is 400 subjects, and for BackHome 5000 subjects. Enrollment
from UCSF will be supplemented by collaborators at three other University of California locations (Davis, Irvine,
and San Diego).
In addition to comeBACK and BackHome, REACH will be participating in the BACPAC Collaborative Clinical
Study (CCS), which is scheduled to start enrolling subjects from a number of sites across the US in February of
2022. The CCS will utilize a sequential, multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART) design to identify
phenotypes associated with response to cLBP treatments.
It is vital that cLBP study participants reflect the diversity of the United States population. To date, however,
minorities have been under-represented in back pain study enrollment. The objective of our proposal is to
optimize diversity and inclusion in REACH cLBP studies.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10399813
- **Project number:** 3U19AR076737-01S2
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Yulin Hswen
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $605,502
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-09-25 → 2024-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10399813

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10399813, REACH Participant Diversity Program (3U19AR076737-01S2). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10399813. Licensed CC0.

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