Chronic pain research resources for Canadian Veterans
English and French animations and companion infographics,
co-designed with Veterans and researchers
Overview
Canadian Veterans experience chronic pain at twice the rate of civilians. The Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence (CPCoE) improves pain management for Veterans by funding research.
We created 4 animations and 2 companion infographics to help CPCoE communicate their mission and share key research findings with Veterans. The promotional and priority-setting animations explain how CPCoE partners with Veterans to prioritize research and mobilize knowledge. The 2 research animations highlight urgent gaps: the absence of sex and gender data in chronic pain studies, and the lack of Veteran-identified health data across Canada.
The promotional animation is featured on the CPCoE homepage and the priority-setting animation is published on their research page. All the animations are published on the CPCoE Youtube channel and social media platforms. The companion infographics are designed to be downloadable resources or used as printed handouts.
Approach
Participatory design
We held advisory sessions with Veterans and worked closely with CPCoE subject matter experts throughout production. Their input shaped which research findings to highlight and how to represent the Veteran community in a way that felt both accurate and meaningful.
Health literacy & scientific accuracy
Content was grounded in peer-reviewed research and developed in close collaboration with CPCoE researchers.
We used iconography to do the heavy lifting for abstract concepts that are easy to confuse. For the sex and gender animation, we designed distinct icon sets using biological and social imagery specific to the Veteran context to clearly differentiate between terms. For the health data animation, we used computer and file folder icons to represent health records, showing Veteran data as visibly absent from the folder to communicate the key message directly without relying on narration alone.
Cultural responsiveness
Characters across all deliverables reflect the diversity of the Canadian Veteran community: different ages, ethnicities, body types, and abilities.
Deliverables
We created English and French resources, including:
1 promotional and 3 educational animations (video files)
2 companion infographics (PDFs)
Closed captions (.srt files)
Social media exports (video files in 9:16 format)