Arthritis Foundation, childhood arthritis group lift support for pediatric rheumatology research with $2M in grants

In response to changes in the federal funding environment, the Arthritis Foundation and the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA) have boosted funding for their joint grant program that supports physician-led research in pediatric rheumatology.

This year, the CARRA-Arthritis Foundation Grant Program will award nearly $2 million – an increase of $200,000 from the previous year – to advance research in this critical field. 

Dr. David Horton, an associate professor of epidemiology at Rutgers School of Public Health, is involved in the childhood arthritis program.

With this year’s additional funds, the CARRA-Arthritis Foundation Grant Program funded one additional mentored career development award to support an early-career investigator and one additional bridge award.

This year’s awards will fund research in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), pediatric lupus, juvenile dermatomyositis, chronic nonbacterial osteomyelitis (CNO) and other childhood rheumatic diseases. 

Many JIA patients want to stop medicines once the disease is under control, but doctors can’t always tell who will have a flare and who will stay well without medicine. The new clinical management JIA grant will support a project that addresses this dilemma.

Led by Dr. David Horton, the “JIA Flares, Recapture of Inactive Disease, and the Patient’s Voice” study will use the CARRA Registry to see if patients’ and caregivers’ views on disease activity can predict flares and how well they can be controlled. It will also look for ways to predict who will have easy-to-control flares and who might have more trouble. This research will help everyone make better decisions about stopping or reducing medicines.

Children growing up with arthritis and other rheumatic diseases are burdened with pain, disability, frequent medical appointments, and the emotional toll of living with a chronic disease. 

JIA, the most common pediatric rheumatic disease, affects as many as 16 to 50 children per 100,000 in the United States. An autoimmune disease, JIA has seven different subtypes. Although the management of JIA and other pediatric rheumatic conditions has improved over the years, there are still many gaps in the treatment of these diseases, as well as the understanding of their pathologies, progression, and impacts.