About the Individual Engagement & Education Working Group

Goal

Engage individuals with OA their family, friends and caregivers with strategies to minimize disease progression and optimize quality of life through effective clinical and self-management strategies (e.g., physical activity, movement, weight management, and self-management education).

The primary strategies for the group currently include:
1) Improve access to self-management education through community and clinical linkages to promote early initiation of lifestyle modifications to reduce pain.
2) Ensure that effective evidence-based interventions to improve OA outcomes are available in a variety of community-based settings, and that supportive policies and environments are available to all.
3) Implement existing guidelines and expand existing campaigns to increase physical activity, reduce inactivity among people with OA and promote a culture of good health.

Since the OAAA reorganization in the Fall of 2015, this workgroup:

• begun to plan for health messaging activities defined in the CDC funded Component 1 grant. Group leaders and OAAA staff have explored potential options for pilot testing of messages through member organizations with existing databases of subscribers (American Chronic Pain Association, Arthritis Foundation).
• participate in the Arthritis in America Twitter Chat with ABC’s Dr. Richard Besser #ABCDrBChat that had 72K potential impressions for our tweets alone, the overall chat had 33.7 million potential impressions.

Priority Audiences: Individuals with OA, caregivers, family and friends, general public.

Group Leadership