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In this issue


  1. Welcome
  2. OA Action Alliance Program Updates
  3. Upcoming OA Action Alliance Events
  4. Work Group Updates
  5. Take Action Now!
Director’s Corner
What an exciting few months it has been here at the Osteoarthritis Action Alliance (OA Action Alliance). We brought together our Steering Committee and other invited guests for our 2015 Strategic Planning meeting at the Thurston Arthritis Research Center, had a strong representation at the 2015 Osteoarthritis Research Society International World Congress, celebrated May is Arthritis Month on Twitter with the hashtag #ArthritisMonth, hosted Lunch & Learn webinars from Brian PietrosimoneSusan MurphyKathryn Remmes Martin and Chenchen Wang. Furthermore, we launched our first grant program, Implementation Strategies to Increase Physical Activity among Adults with Osteoarthritis and began developing the bi-weekly digest to keep our members and friends informed about all that is happening in the world of osteoarthritis–in research, practice and policy, We also welcomed the following members to our organization: Center for Science in the Public InterestAthletic Trainers’ Osteoarthritis ConsortiumAustralian Centre for Research into Injury in Sport and its PreventionOsteoarthritis Research Society InternationalUniversity of Aberdeen-EpidemiologyNorth Carolina Rheumatology Association, the School of Occupational Therapy at Brenau UniversityUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham, Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, and the International Myopain Society. We have also partnered with the Go4Life campaign from the National Institute on Aging at NIH and The Arthritis National Research FoundationWhether you are a member or just a friend, we want to hear from you! Here are three ways you can help us fulfill our mission to prevent and control osteoarthritis:
(1) Fill out this short survey with your ideas on how the OA Action Alliance can work toward achieving our 5 overarching goals (i.e. Invoke policymakers, foster communities, mobilize health systems and health care professionals, educate people with osteoarthritis, prevent onset of osteoarthritis).(2) Join the conversation on social media. Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. We see social media as a way for us to carry out the OA Action Alliance mission every day, to share critical information and provide the public with a better understanding of the work we do. Please like, share and retweet our posts and spread the word about our work, and remember to use the hashtag #osteoarthritis in your posts!

(3) Provide us with feedback and let us know how we can improve your experience as a member of the Alliance or as a friend with interest in OA. Share your vision of how we can make the OA Action Alliance the nexus for public health research, policy, and practice for all things osteoarthritis! Let us know how we can better support your organization’s mission by emailing us at oaaction@unc.edu. 

We plan to keep you updated on our progress toward our goals as a coalition and keep you abreast of developments in our working groups. In the coming months, we also look forward to the development of our lower limb injury toolkit, updating our resource library, strengthening our membership by recruiting new members with relevance and interest in OA; continuing our educational Lunch & Learn seminars and providing you with a biweekly letter to continue connecting our members with resources, news, and events from all of our member organizations.

On behalf of the OA Action Alliance, thank you for your continued support,

Leigh F. Callahan, PhD
Director, Osteoarthritis Action Alliance
OA Action Alliance Program Updates


Thurston Arthritis Research Center hosts the OA Action Alliance Strategic Planning Meeting


On April 8, 2015, the Osteoarthritis (OA) Action Alliance hosted a Strategic Planning Retreat at the Thurston Arthritis Research Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The Steering Committee (SC) along with other visitors in attendance learned more about developing an effective coalition, reviewed and revised the organization’s vision and mission statements and reevaluated the structure of the organization to broaden our focus and impact. Additionally, the SC reviewed strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the organization to guide our action plan development. Finally, we discussed sustainability for the OAAA and the advantages of expanding our funding sources beyond CDC. Furthermore, we are committed to sustainability and our proud to designate our 2015 Strategic Planning Meeting as a Carolina Green Event!

Participants at the meeting then drafted action plans and developed strategies around the five overarching coalition goals that were initially developed in September 2014 by CDC, Arthritis Foundation and OAAA leadership and revised by the SC this spring. These overarching goals seek to:
1) Invoke policymakers at all levels to make OA a public health priority.
2) Foster communities to disseminate information and resources, and support implementation of community-based interventions.
3) Mobilize healthcare systems and providers to proactively address OA in clinical care.
4) Engage individuals in clinical and self-management strategies such as weight management, physical activity, movement and education.
5) Prevent OA through injury prevention and weight management.
While pursuing these five goals, the OAAA will continue to refer to the objectives and strategies outlined in the 2010 National Public Health Agenda for Osteoarthritis as a blueprint for action.
Given the outcomes from the SC’s Strategic Planning Retreat described above, our immediate next step was to amend the OAAA bylaws as follows:
➢Revise the vision and mission statements for the OA Action Alliance
➢Propose a new organizational structure to include 5 work groups focused on the coalition goals listed above. The proposed working groups will subsume the content areas outlined in the OA Agenda (weight management, injury prevention, physical activity, and self-management education) in ongoing and future endeavors and have broader impact overall.

➢Broaden language about funding and disbursement of funds to allow and provide guidance for diversified sponsorship beyond the CDC.

The bylaws were amended on Thursday, July 8th, 2015

In the coming months, we will be strategizing with our Steering Committee and Work Group leaders to ensure a smooth transition of our work groups that are committed to fulfilling our organizational mission. If you are interested in learning more about a leadership position with the OA Action Alliance, please contact us.


Implementation Strategies to Increase Physical Activity among Adults with Osteoarthritis Grant Program Awardees Announced


The OA Action Alliance launched its first small grant program this year. The grant program was organized by the OAAA Physical Activity Work Group and led by task group leader, Yvonne Golightly, PT, MS, PhD (representing member organization, the UNC Thurston Arthritis Research Center)

The purpose of the grant program is to engage community organizations and to advance the objectives of the 2011 report, Environmental and Policy Strategies to Increase Physical Activity Among Adults With Arthritis, which focuses on the benefits of physical activity and ways to make it more convenient and accessible to people with arthritis.

In our first year of the small grant program, we received an overwhelmingly positive response, with nearly 40 applications from 19 states, representing a diversity of sectors and geographic locations.

The 2015 awardees include: Arizona State University and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Wellness Program, Wellpath; Associated Recreation Council of Seattle, and the Texas State University Employee Wellness Pilot Program

We thank all of our applicants and reviewers for their participation in this year’s small grant program! We hope to have the fund to continue this program next year. Please stay tuned for updates on our website on each of our awardees.

For more information, please find the press release here


Launch of the OA Action Alliance Bi-weekly Digest


We recently launched a bi-weekly digest! We plan to use this digest to share the latest OA Action Alliance news, as well as OA-related resources, publications, achievements, events, opportunities from or for our member organizations.

Have something you would like to share with us? Have feedback on the digest? Please email My-Linh Luong at mylinh.oaaa@gmail.com with your comments

Missed the most recent newsletter? You can visit our archive here!


Stay Connected with Us


We have updated our website and launched our presence on social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook. We see social media as a way to share critical information to our members and provide the public with a better understanding of the work we do. Please like, share and retweet our posts and spread the word about our work and use the hashtag #osteoarthritis in your posts. In the upcoming quarter we hope to launch a regular e-newsletter that complements our social media presence and that highlights news, research, opportunities, events, webinars, and resources from our member organizations.

We love highlighting our work groups and member organizations! If you would like us to feature you or your organization, please send your submission to mylinh.oaaa@gmail.com

(L-R) Members of the 2015  Strategic Planning Meeting; Mari Brick (of the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors) and Tai Baker (of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) report on strategies to engage people with osteoarthritis; Darin Padua (of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association) at the 2015 OARSI World Congress; in Seattle, WA; Members of Thurston Arthritis Research Center and the OA Action Alliance gather at the 2015 OARSI World Congress in Seattle, WA

For more photos from the OA Action Alliance, please visit our Facebook page

Upcoming OA Action Alliance Events


August

  • August Lunch & Learn with Robert Sallis |  Wednesday, August 19, | 12:00pm-12:30pm | Register here
  • Physical Activity Work Group Meeting | Thursday, August 20 | 12:00pm EDT
  • Lower Limb Injury Prevention Task Force | Friday, August 21 | 12:30pm EDT
  • Steering Committee Meeting call, Date and Time TBD

September

  • September Lunch & Learn with Kelly Evenson | Wednesday September 16, 2015 | 12:00pm-12:30pm EDT | Register here

October

  • October Lunch & Learn with Basia Belza, Shopping for a Healthier You: What Mall Walking Can Offer | Wednesday October 21, 2015 | 12:00pm-12:30pm EDT | Register here

Please email us at oaaction@unc.edu if you are interested in presenting during an upcoming Lunch & Learn webinar.

If you are interested in joining one of our work groups, please contact the Chair or Vice Chair of that work group (see below for more information).

Injury Prevention Work Group Updates


  • A task force, led by Tom Trojian, MD, is currently developing guidelines for an ACL/Lower Extremity Injury Prevention Toolkit and reaching out to stakeholders

Please contact task force leader: Tom Trojian, MD at Thomas.Trojian@drexelmed.edu for more information or to join the task force.

Please contact Chair: Tom Trojian, MD (Thomas.Trojian@drexelmed.edu) or Vice Chair: Darin Padua, PhD, ATC (dpadua@email.unc.edu) for more information.

Physical Activity Work Group Updates


  • A Small Grant task force, led by Yvonne Golightly, PhD, PT, launched a small grant program to promote the Environmental and Policy Strategies to Increase Physical Activity Among Adults With Arthritis – Implementation Guide Mini Grant Program. Awardees were recently announced.
  • Community-based walkability audit for adults with arthritis and white papers reviewing OA and physical activity are in progress.
  • A Membership Resources task force reached out to all of our member organizations and has begun compiling resources to develop a comprehensive OA Action Alliance Resource Library. Are you a member organization that forgot to fill out a survey? If so, it is not too late! Please fill out a survey today: Please stay tuned for the new and improved OA Action Alliance resource library!

Please contact Chair Julie J. Keysor, PhD, PT (jkeysor@bu.edu) or Vice Chair Cedric X. Bryant, PhD, FACSM (Cedric.Bryant@acefitness.org) for more information.

Weight Management Work Group Updates


Please contact Chair Amanda Nelson, MD, MSCR, RhMSUS (amanda_nelson@med.unc.edu) for more information.

Take Action Now!


Again, here are three ways you can support the OA Action Alliance
(1) Fill out this short survey with your ideas on how the OA Action Alliance can work toward achieving our 5 overarching goals
(2) Engage with us on social media. Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.  Check out our website and share our resources with your networks.
(3) Provide us with feedback and let us know how we can better promote your organization by emailing us at oaaction@unc.edu

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