Welcome to the
African Pain Research Initiative
Housed within the University of Cape Town Neuroscience Institute, our initiative is committed to transforming the understanding and treatment of pain within the African context.
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With a foundation in clinical physiotherapy and a passion for contextual research, Associate Professor Madden and our team are dedicated to uncovering the social, psychological, neural, and immune processes underpinning pain, and developing effective, culturally sensitive interventions.
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Prof Madden, Initiative Director, sees contextualised research as the best tool to identify the processes that pain treatments should target in order to bring about real, enduring change for people who live with pain.
About us
The vision of the African Pain Research Initiative is an Africa where people with pain recover and thrive. Its mission is to study how pain emerges and persists, to identify the most influential social, psychological, and neuroimmune mechanisms to treat.
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Pain causes profound suffering, and most treatments for persistent pain have very limited effectiveness. We need a clear understanding of the complex processes that underpin pain to develop better treatments that alter those complex processes to relieve pain and support recovery. The cultural, social, and neuroimmune context in which pain emerges is different in Africa. Using an interdisciplinary lens to clarify the mechanisms of pain in the African context will support treatments that are relevant, feasible, and effective for African people with pain.
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Our Impact
This work contributes toward our vision of an Africa where people with pain recover and thrive. ​
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Increased insight into mechanisms of pain, supporting relevant, feasible strategies to prevent and treat pain in Africa. ​
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A cadre of African, pain-informed researchers conducting high-quality, relevant research.
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Increased public awareness of how pain works and opportunities to get help.
Our Research Approach
Our approach to addressing pain in Africa is to develop and execute research projects that identify the most important pain mechanisms for interventions to target, and then develop and test pain interventions that are relevant, feasible and effective in Africa. Our research approach is founded on the understanding that pain is a complex phenomenon that can only be properly understood using a team-science approach: we need varied and sometimes conflicting perspectives to make progress. The complexity of pain is a reality across the globe, and it is made particularly apparent by the remarkable diversity in Africa.​
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To benefit from these varied perspectives, we take multiple approaches: ​
Understand
the processes that cause and maintain pain, in the African context
Clarify
the way pain is viewed, expressed, and addressed, in Africa
Develop
and test interventions to prevent and treat pain in Africa
To achieve our objectives, we aim to work across the translational pipeline from clinical and research observations, through experiments, to testing and refining interventions that actually help people with pain. Across our work, we engage directly with our advisory group of People Involved in Pain Research and Services (PIPERS) to ground our research in relevance, respect, and clarity.
Our approach to pain research is to embrace the complexity. Pain emerges from multiple processes within a whole person who is trying to live a meaningful life. Our research must enable clinical strategies to support that meaningful life.
Professor Tory Madden, Initiative Director
