RENEW
A research center of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe
RENEW Research to Enhance Native Wellness
The RENEW Center is a tribally led research center within the Absentee Shawnee Tribal Health System. We conduct community-based research on behavioral health and pain grounded in our culture, guided by our community, and built on the Tribe's ownership of its own data.
Four commitments, one center. Select a direction to explore each one.
Why this center exists
Research done with and for our community not simply on it.
Pain and behavioral health, together
Chronic pain, substance use, and mental health are deeply connected in our community. We study them the way our people live them as part of a whole person and a whole community.
Our data stays ours
Every record and every finding belongs to the Tribe. Nothing is shared or published without tribal approval, and research decisions rest with our community's leadership.
Building lasting capacity
We train community members, develop tribal research review structures, and build infrastructure the Tribe will own for generations not just for one grant.
A historic beginning
In 2024, the Absentee Shawnee Tribal Health System received its first award under the NIH HEAL Initiative Native Collective Research Effort to Enhance Wellness (N CREW) program and hosted a visit from the Director of the NIH, the first such visit to a tribal health system in at least 15 years.
Latest from RENEW
News & updates
Building a tribally led chronic pain registry
RENEW is developing a community chronic pain registry and preparing to begin enrolling participants.
Developing a Tribal Research Review Board
Work is underway to establish the Tribe's own research review board, strengthening sovereign oversight of all research.
Community Advisory Board: next meeting
Join us to hear what RENEW is working on and share what matters to you. See dates and agendas on our Community page.
About the RENEW Center
A center the Tribe leads, owns, and governs
Ke n'he to ke yi (key n'hee toh key yah) “Renew yourself.” The RENEW Center exists so that research about our people is led by our people answering the community's questions, protecting its data, and strengthening its health system.
What our name means
Our name carries our language and our science together a reminder that renewal is both a cultural value and a research mission.
Ke n'he to ke yi
Pronounced key n'hee toh key yah. In the Absentee Shawnee language it means “Renew yourself.”
RENEW
Short for Research to Enhance Native Wellness.
Absentee Shawnee Center for Wellness Research
The formal descriptive name. Internally, our operating unit remains the Tribe's Clinical Research Center.
Our mission
Mission statement
The RENEW Center is committed to fostering innovative, culturally resonant, and holistic approaches to behavioral health. Grounded in systems thinking, our mission is to enhance the well-being of our community by developing and implementing research-driven solutions for pain management, substance abuse, and mental health challenges. Through collaboration, ethical research practices, and the integration of traditional and modern medical knowledge, we strive to build a healthier, more resilient future for AST, Native communities of Oklahoma, and beyond.
Our vision
A sustainable, tribally owned research center where the community's questions drive the work, findings return to the community, and the Tribe controls its own research infrastructure, data, and priorities, with partners in a supporting role.
Our values
Sovereignty and self-determination community benefit and relevance cultural grounding ethics and transparency capacity building and shared ownership. Every project is measured against these before it begins.
What we're building
A tribal learning health system
The AST established RENEW to build something the Tribe has never had before: a tribally owned, tribally governed capacity to turn our own health data into our own health knowledge and that knowledge into better care for our people. Our work centers on chronic pain and its close companions, substance use and behavioral health.
Data comes in
Health information flows into a tribally housed data warehouse, under governance rules grounded in Indigenous data sovereignty.
Knowledge comes out
Data are analyzed to reveal where care succeeds and where it breaks down turning numbers into understanding.
Care gets better
That knowledge returns to providers and the community as something they can act on a continuous loop of learning and improvement.
and the cycle begins again a continuous loop of learning and improvement.
We are assembling this as a shared data commons. Its members patients and families, the Community Advisory Board, providers, Traditional Knowledge Holders (Elders and our Language/Cultural Department staff), our EHR and IT teams, and our partners each contribute to and draw from it. Above all, we want to own our data and have the capacity to use it for self-determined health planning.
How we got here
Our story
The Tribe sets its research priorities
Through community questionnaires, provider input, and listening sessions, AST members identified behavioral health and chronic pain and the need for culturally grounded care as priorities the Tribe wanted to study on its own terms.
Our first N CREW award
The AST Health System received its first grant awarded under the NIH HEAL Initiative Native Collective Research Effort to Enhance Wellness (N CREW) program, joining the inaugural group of Tribes and Native Serving Organizations advancing community-led research.
NIH leadership visits AST
Senior NIH leadership including the Director of the NIH and the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse visited the AST Health System, the first visit by an NIH director to a tribal health system in at least 15 years.
Assessments, governance, and design
RENEW assessed the Tribe's data landscape and research capacity, drafted governance and operations policies, seated a Community Advisory Board, and designed its first research infrastructure.
Building the registry and tribal review
RENEW is developing a tribally led chronic pain registry, preparing to enroll participants, and establishing the Tribe's own Tribal Research Review Board.
A tribally owned research future
As capacity grows, RENEW will pursue the research questions the community chooses with the Tribe's own review board overseeing the work and findings returning home first.
Governance & oversight
Who decides? The Tribe at every level.
No research begins, no data is shared, and no finding is published without tribal approval. Select each level to learn more.
The RENEW Center operates under Absentee Shawnee Tribe Executive Committee Resolution E-AS-2026-30.
Our people
The RENEW team
A dedicated team rooted in the community and the AST Health System.
Project and community leadership; administration, governance, and tribal and federal relations.
Clinical guidance for integrated pain and behavioral health research.
Study design, methodology, and evaluation; capacity building with academic partners.
Research-technical lead REDCap administration, data extraction and reporting, milestone and vendor-deliverable tracking, and dual-review IRB coordination.
An enrolled member of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe. Participant-facing and operational lead registry enrollment, interview logistics, consent and survey packets, stipends, CAB and Health Board documentation, and N CREW travel.
Systems, security, and audit logging.
Data mapping and clinical workflow review (eClinicalWorks).
Hiring, training, and recruitment support.
Web, social media, and communications.
Growing the team
As RENEW's work expands, planned roles Research Coordinators, Cultural Liaisons, and Community Research Ambassadors drawn from the community will join alongside our external partners.
Our research
Community-based, tribally led research
We conduct community-based participatory research (CBPR) and tribally led projects focused on behavioral health including pain, substance use, and mental health grounded in our community's priorities and cultural strengths.
How we work
The community leads; research follows
Community-based participatory research
Community members are partners at every stage from choosing what to study, to shaping how it's done, to deciding how findings are used. Research is done with the community, not on it.
Directed by the Tribe
Priorities are set by the Tribe and its community, not by outside institutions. Academic and clinical partners contribute expertise in support of tribally chosen goals.
Behavioral health, whole-person
We approach pain, substance use, and mental health as connected parts of a whole person and a whole community integrating traditional and contemporary knowledge.
Focus areas
What we study
Our work centers on behavioral health in our community. Specific projects are developed with community input and reviewed by tribal governance before they begin.
Chronic pain
Understanding how pain affects our community and how care can be improved including through a tribally led chronic pain registry now in development.
Substance use
Community-prioritized research on substance use and recovery, responsive to the strengths and needs of our people.
Mental health & wellness
Studying mental health and overall wellness as part of a holistic, culturally grounded view of health.
Our first major project
RENEW's first flagship effort is a tribally led chronic pain registry, currently in development, with participant enrollment planned to begin soon.
Planned research
From building the infrastructure to asking our questions
Now we are moving from building the infrastructure to using it to answer questions our community has asked. Our first study is a pilot the first use of our new tribally governed data pipeline looking at chronic pain care for Absentee Shawnee people. It brings two ways of knowing together.
Chronic Pain Cascade of Care
Using data from our tribally governed warehouse, we follow the steps of care from identifying pain, to assessment, to coordinated treatment, to staying engaged, to real functional improvement to see where care succeeds and where it breaks down. What we learn points to where the care system can do better.
Patient Journey Mapping
Working with community members, we map the care journey in their own words from the first onset of pain through daily life with it centering the cultural, relational, and spiritual strengths that sustain wellness. This tells us why care unfolds the way it does.
Read together
By reading the two side by side where care breaks down, and why we locate the places where change is both possible and welcome. The gap belongs to how care is organized, not to the people who live with pain. What we learn will shape the community-guided work that comes next. This study is community-prioritized and governed under tribal data sovereignty.
Our approach
Frameworks that guide us
Two-Eyed Seeing
Bringing together the strengths of Indigenous knowledge and Western science, using both for the benefit of the community.
Four Directions
A holistic view honoring the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of well-being.
Systems thinking
Seeing health challenges as connected within a larger system so solutions address root causes, not just symptoms.
For our community
A tribally led chronic pain registry
RENEW is building a community chronic pain registry and will soon begin enrolling participants. It's a way for the Tribe to understand pain in our own community and work toward better, more culturally grounded care.
What is a registry in plain words?
A registry is a secure, organized collection of health information from community members who choose to take part. Think of it as the Tribe's own health notebook: over time, it can help us see patterns what kinds of pain people experience and where care can improve so the Tribe can make informed decisions for its people.
A registry is not an experiment. It gathers information, with permission, to help the community learn. Details about how to join, what's involved, and your rights as a participant will be shared as enrollment approaches.
Owned by the Tribe
All registry information will be stored on systems controlled by the Absentee Shawnee Tribe, under the Tribe's data sovereignty policies.
Why it matters
The potential benefits
A tribally led registry can help our community in lasting ways.
Better understanding
Seeing the fuller picture of how pain affects our community knowledge built from our own people, not borrowed from studies that never included us.
Improved care
Insights can help the health system strengthen services and design care that fits our community's needs and values.
Community-guided research
A foundation for future, community-prioritized research all under tribal ownership and control.
How it will work
From taking part to better care
A simple path with the community in control at every step. Full details will be shared as enrollment approaches.
Choose to join
Participation will be voluntary, with a clear, respectful conversation about what's involved.
Share securely
Information is gathered and stored within the Tribe's own secure systems.
Learn from patterns
Grouped, de-identified information helps the community and clinicians see what's needed.
Improve care
What we learn returns to the community and the health system to inform better care.
Common questions
Questions & answers
Stay informed
Want to hear when enrollment opens? Reach out through our contact page and we'll keep you posted.
Our promise to the community
Our data. Our decisions. Our future.
Data sovereignty means the Tribe not outside institutions owns, controls, and decides how information about our people is collected, stored, used, and shared. It is the foundation of everything RENEW does.
Be FAIR and CARE
The CARE Principles guide every data decision
Modern science asks that data be FAIR Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable. For Indigenous data, we put the CARE Principles first.
Collective Benefit
Data must work for the good of the AST community improving care, programs, and self-determination.
Authority to Control
The Tribe holds the right to govern its data what is collected, how it's used, and who may see it.
Responsibility
Those who work with our data are accountable for handling it respectfully, securely, and for community benefit.
Ethics
The rights and well-being of our people come before any research goal at every stage.
The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance were developed by the Global Indigenous Data Alliance (GIDA). Our framework also draws on the OCAP principles Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession. OCAP is a registered trademark of the First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC).
What this means in practice
Plain-language commitments
Data stays home
Information about our community stays within AST-controlled systems, under tribal governance not handed off to outside institutions.
Privacy protected
We report grouped information, never in ways that could identify an individual or family. Protecting our people comes first.
Cultural knowledge is protected
Sacred and sensitive cultural knowledge is not research data, and is never collected or shared without direction from tribal cultural authorities.
Nothing published without approval
Every report and publication is reviewed by tribal governance and shared with the community first before it goes anywhere else.
Dual-layer review
Any research involving the Tribe must be approved by both a contemporary Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the Tribe's own Tribal Research Review Board (in development). Tribal authority always takes precedence.
Community & advisory boards
This center belongs to you
Community members don't just take part in our research they help govern it. Here's how to add your voice.
Community Advisory Board (CAB)
The CAB brings together elders, youth, cultural leaders, health professionals, and community members to guide our research reviewing plans, materials, and findings so the work stays respectful, clear, and useful. No research experience needed; your lived experience is the expertise.
Tribal Research Review Board (TRRB)
The TRRB will be the Tribe's own research review board, providing sovereign review of research protocols. Any research involving the Tribe must be approved by both a contemporary IRB and the TRRB. Community members interested in serving or learning more can reach out through the form below.
Meetings & events
Upcoming dates
Dates will be posted here as they are confirmed.
| Date | Event | Location | Open to |
|---|---|---|---|
| TBD | CAB Quarterly Meeting | Little Axe Health Center | CAB members + invited guests |
| TBD | Community Open House: Meet RENEW | Little Axe Health Center | Everyone families welcome |
| TBD | CAB Quarterly Meeting | Little Axe Health Center | CAB members + invited guests |
| TBD | Community Update & Listening Session | Little Axe Health Center | Everyone |
Transparency
Meeting agendas & summaries
We share plain-language agendas and approved summaries so the community can follow the work.
- Welcome, opening, and introductions
- RENEW updates and current work
- Review of community materials
- Tribal Research Review Board: progress
- Community feedback and open discussion
- Next steps and closing
Get involved
Apply to join the Community Advisory Board
All AST community members are encouraged to apply. We especially welcome elders, young adults, and those with lived experience of pain or behavioral health journeys.
For tribes, researchers & funders
Partnering on the Tribe's terms
We welcome collaboration that respects sovereignty, benefits the community, and builds capacity. Here's how research works here and who works alongside us.
For external researchers
How research is reviewed & approved
Any research involving the Tribe, its members, or its data moves through tribal review. Plan for it from the start we'll help you navigate.
Submit a proposal
Share your research plan, data governance approach, community benefit plan, and team.
RENEW & community review
RENEW staff and the Community Advisory Board assess fit, cultural appropriateness, and community benefit.
Dual approval
Research must be approved by a contemporary IRB and the Tribal Research Review Board before it can begin.
Agreement & oversight
A research agreement governs data ownership, publication review, and benefit sharing with tribal authority first.
Know before you propose
All data remains the property of the Tribe. Nothing is published or presented without tribal approval, and research must deliver clear benefit to the community. If these principles fit your work, we'd love to talk.
Learning together
As part of the national N CREW community of Tribes and Native Serving Organizations, we believe Native research capacity grows fastest when we learn from one another. We're glad to share what we're learning about building a tribally governed research center.
Visible, accountable progress
RENEW operates under the NIH HEAL Initiative N CREW program with community-driven priorities and structured milestones. Approved progress and updates are shared here as the work advances.
Growing Native researchers
Building research capacity within the community is central to our mission through training, mentorship, and roles for community members such as Research Coordinators, Cultural Liaisons, and Community Research Ambassadors.
Organizational structure
How RENEW is organized
RENEW sits within the AST Health System governed by tribal authorities, run by a small operations team, supported by embedded health-system staff, and advised by external partners. The Tribe leads at every tier.
Structure adapted from the internal Clinical Research Center organizational chart. Roles and partners will be updated as the Center grows.
News & updates
What RENEW is up to
Updates, milestones, and community announcements. More will be posted here as the work advances.
AST receives its first N CREW award
The AST Health System received its first NIH HEAL Initiative N CREW program award, later hosting a historic visit from NIH leadership.
Chronic pain registry in development
RENEW is building a tribally led chronic pain registry and preparing to enroll participants.
Developing a Tribal Research Review Board
Work is underway to establish the Tribe's own research review board.
Community open house
Join us for a plain-language look at what RENEW is building for the community. Details will be shared here soon.
Advisory Board member spotlight
Meet the community members guiding our work. Spotlights will be added here over time.
Foundations complete
RENEW completed its data and research-capacity assessments the groundwork for what follows.
Contact us
We'd love to hear from you
Questions about the registry, the advisory board, partnership, or anything else reach out anytime.
Little Axe Health Center
Ke n'he to ke yi RENEW Center
15951 Little Axe Drive
Norman, Oklahoma 73026
405.447.0300
almiller@astribe.com
Shawnee Clinic
Ke n'he to ke yi RENEW Center
Building 16, 2029 S. Gordon Cooper Dr.
Shawnee, OK 74801
405.447.0300
almiller@astribe.com
Send us a message
Accessibility
We want this site to be usable by everyone, including elders and people using assistive technology. Use the AAA buttons in the header to enlarge text. If anything here is hard to use, please tell us and we'll fix it.
The Absentee Shawnee Center for Wellness Research a tribally led research center of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, within the Absentee Shawnee Tribal Health System. Ke n'he to ke yi means “Renew yourself.” RENEW: Research to Enhance Native Wellness.
Funding acknowledgment: Research reported on this website is supported by the National Institutes of Health under award number 3OT2DA061113, as part of the NIH HEAL Initiative, Native Collective Research Effort to Enhance Wellness (N CREW) Program. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Notice: The CARE Principles are from the Global Indigenous Data Alliance (GIDA); OCAP is a registered trademark of the First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC).
Authorization: The RENEW Center operates under Absentee Shawnee Tribe Executive Committee Resolution E-AS-2026-30.