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Quarterly Newsletter July-September 2017

Alliance Updates

Communication Highlights
Round 2 of our Mini-Grant Program is up and running!
We sent out a Request for Applications (RFA) on July 5th. We requested an Email of Intent by August 15th and applications will be due on October 16th. We look forward to reviewing the applications and selecting our next cohort of Mini-Grants to begin in January. Miss the RFA announcement? Read all about it in our website news feed.
We joined the American College of Rheumatology SimpleTasks Campaign and other rheumatic disease advocacy groups around the world to recognize Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month. This year, the theme of Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month was “you don’t have to be an athlete to have sore joints”.
We were a bronze sponsor for the 2017 National Walking Summit, hosted by America Walks in St. Paul, MN Sept 13-15, 2017. We also presented a poster on the Walkability Audit, an effort to determine the most important elements of the environment to promote walkability for people with arthritis.
 

Lunch & Learn Webinar: Tamra Huff MD, Musculoskeletal Health Disparities: Breaking the Vicious Cycle

OAAA Lunch and Learn Webinars

Additional Awareness Events  

Pain Awareness Month (ACPA) – learn more
Go For Life Month (NIH) – learn more
Active Aging Week (ICAA) – learn more

Let us know about your upcoming events so we can support your organization’s initiatives!

We supported the National Recreation and Park Association, to help America “get your play on” in July during Park and Recreation Month.
New Partnership! NRPA has teamed up with Walk With a Doc(WWAD) to promote healthy living and encourage participation in WWAD and Walk With Ease, the Arthritis Foundation’s proven arthritis intervention program. A Walk in the Park is happening in 8 cities (including OAAA home, Chapel Hill!) – is your city on the list? If so, join a walk!

 

Conferences and Presentations

We are gearing up for a busy conference season this Fall and hope to connect with those of you who are also attending.

Obesity Week Nov 1, 3:45 PM Level 2 Partner Symposium Beyond Energy Expenditure: The Role of Musculoskeletal Health in Prescribing Exercise to Children With Obesity

American Public Health AssociationNov 7, 8:30 AM Session: 4002.0: Alzheimer’s Disease and Health Issues in Baby Boomers Roundtable

American College of Rheumatology Nov 7, 7:30 AM Session: 5T006 ARHP: Engaging with Community Organizations to Promote Physical Activity Interventions

 

Strategic Planning Meeting
 

 

Visit our updated resource page for community organizations where you can find implementation tools, marketing materials, and evaluation guides.

 

Social Media Statistics from this Quarter

Twitter

91.6 K total impressions
Thank you all for sharing and engaging with our infographic “Staying in the Game is a Joint Effort” It has over 26,000 impressions and 400 engagements!
Facebook
18,850 people were served our posts this quarter, an 80% increase from last quarter!
15% increase in post engagements since last quarter.
LinkedIn
We now have a company page on LinkedIn! Follow us for updates and add us to your work experience page.
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
All of our Lunch and Learn webinars are archived on our channel. Subscribe to rewatch your favorite video and never miss a Lunch and Learn webinar again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Additional workgroup and Alliance efforts and progress from this quarter are highlighted on our website.

 

Notes From the Chair

On September 29, 2017, the OAAA held its annual Strategic Planning meeting in beautiful Chapel Hill, NC. The Steering Committee met face-to-face to discuss where we’ve been and where we are headed. It is a great time to catch up with fellow committee members to remember why we are all volunteering to take part in this important coalition – to raise awareness about osteoarthritis (OA). More than that, we have spent the last year focused on education about OA, both in developing and curating useful resources and sharing those resources widely to help people understand how to prevent OA or manage symptoms through proven behavioral strategies. Our efforts are paying off!

The OAAA Injury Prevention group published its position statement on key athletic training exercises to minimize lower limb injury in September’s issue of the World Journal of Orthopedics. The Weight Management group published a commentary on the implications of obesity on musculoskeletal health in the current issue of the North Carolina Medical Journal. Our Community Engagement group shared the benefits of walking and creating walkable spaces for people with arthritis at America Walks’ National Walking Summit. Finally, as highlighted in this newsletter, we have participated actively in the NRPA’s awareness campaign promoting use of parks and trails for health and fun, the ACR’s Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month campaign and twitter chat, and the ACPA’s Pain Awareness month messaging to support the efforts of our great member organizations. All of these activities have led to an uptick in our social media engagements, which means we are doing a better job of sharing key public health messaging about OA and reaching a broader audience. Follow us and help us bring more awareness about great ways to keep moving and stay in the game!

Thomas Trojian, MD, CAQSM, FACSM
Chair, OA Action Alliance

From Our Director

It is hard to believe it has been a year since we began our cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)! It has been an exciting year of growth, development and progress in achieving the objectives identified in “A National Public Health Agenda for Osteoarthritis”. As an Alliance, we have grown in our communications, partnerships and resources. We have made progress in our goal of expanding dissemination and delivery of Arthritis Appropriate Evidence-Based Interventions through our Mini-Grant program, funding 15 organizations this year. Our grantees are not only implementing the Arthritis Foundation’s Walk With Ease program, they are developing innovative delivery models utilizing partnerships with healthcare organizations, community organizations and even technology. We look forward to selecting our next cohort of mini-grantees later in the Fall with a start date for their projects of January 2018. As we begin year two of our cooperative agreement, we will be focusing on increasing our membership and the diversity of organizations in our alliance, enhancing our engagement with our members, sustainability of the OAAA, and launching our new communications campaign.  We ended the quarter with our Annual Strategic Planning meeting in Chapel Hill, NC.  We were pleased to have our honorary co-chairs, Dianne and Lennie Rosenbuth, join the group for dinner.  It was wonderful to feel the energy and commitment of our volunteers and representatives from member organizations. Thanks to all who attended and thanks to Kirsten, Allison, and Leigha from our staff team for making sure the meeting was a success!

 

We are thrilled to welcome a new addition to our OAAA staff team, Haley Hudson, a Public Health Associate from the CDC Public Health Associate Program. She is a recent graduate from Fort Valley State University where she graduated Cum Laude with a degree in Biology. She is also an Army Officer in the United States Army Reserve. The Public Health Associate Program is a competitive two-year, paid training program for recent graduates. Associates work in local, state, tribal health departments as well as NGOs. Haley will be with us full time over the next two years as she gains experience in public health with supplemented education and training from the CDC.

Please communicate with any of us on the OAAA team to share ideas for ways we can make the OAAA stronger and more successful in our commitment to elevating OA as a national health priority and promoting effective policy solutions that address the individual and national toll of OA.

 

Leigh F. Callahan, PhD
Director, Osteoarthritis Action Alliance

Upcoming Events

October

  • World Arthritis Awareness Day | October 12 | EULAR | Learn more
  • Applications due! All organizations that have submitted an email of intent are to submit their final applicants on October 16th. Want to learn more about this opportunity? We will open another round in 2018. Read the full release here. Note: this page has been updated to include the webinar recording listed above, PDF of webinar slides, and FAQ list from webinar attendees.
  • Lunch & Learn webinar with Serena Weisner, MS – Exploring Arthritis Appropriate Evidence-Based Interventions | Wednesday, October 18 | 12:00pm-12:30pm ET | Registration here
  • Walk with a Doc @ UNC Wellness Center | Saturday, October 21 | Meadowmont, Chapel Hill, NC | 10:00am Free for all
  • Bone and Joint Action Week | October 12-20 | United States Bone and Joint Initative | Learn how you can get invovled

November

December

  • Walk with a Doc @ UNC Wellness Center-Meadowmont | Saturday, December 16| Chapel Hill, NC | 10:00am Free for all
  • Lunch & Learn webinar with Kim Bennell, PhD | Wednesday, December 20 | 12:00pm-12:30pmET
  • Happy Holidays!

Take Action Now

Whether you are a member or just a friend, there are many ways you can support the OA Action Alliance:

We love to engage and share messenging on social media. Please like, share and retweet our posts and use the hashtag #osteoarthritis in your posts. Check out our website and share our resources with your networks.Send us feedback and let us know how we can better promote your organization by emailing us at oaaction@unc.edu.

You can join a work group(s) or a task force by emailing us.

  • Workgroup 1: Policy & Advocacy
  • Workgroup 2: Community Engagement
  • Workgroup 3: Healthcare Systems & Provider Mobilization
  • Workgroup 4: Individual Engagement & Education
  • Workgroup 5: OA Prevention
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The Osteoarthritis Action Alliance (OAAA) is supported, in part, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Thurston Arthritis Research Center (TARC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is the lead agency. Contents are solely the responsibility of the OAAA or TARC. 

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