Katelynn Boerner

PhD, Rpsych

Investigator and Psychologist, BC Children's Hospital
Member, Academy of Translational Medicine, University of British Columbia
Associate Faculty Member, Centre for Gender & Sexual Health Equity

Chronic pain affects many young people. Living with chronic pain can impact a child’s social, emotional, academic, recreational, and developmental outcomes. While there are pain treatments that work, most of them have been developed and tested on populations that do not reflect the diversity of young people we serve in our clinical settings.

My research focuses on making pain research and care more accessible and equitable for young people. We do this by understanding the developmental, individual, and social factors that are involved in pain, and by thinking creatively about how to use this information to change practice. I am especially interested in understanding the role of sex, gender, and neurodiversity on pain, and have projects looking at the experiences of chronic pain in gender-diverse and autistic youth.

We use a variety of methods to study pain and related experiences, with the aim of making research participation safe, trauma-informed, and accessible for young people who function across the developmental spectrum. This includes through interviews with young people and their families and in-home data collection tools that allow us to look at experiences that change and interact over time. Co-creating our methods with patients and families is a key part of this, making sure the lived experience perspective is integral to everything we do.