In addition to these efforts, the ACR continues to advocate for increased funding of federal programs engaged in vital research to combat arthritis and related diseases. Three times a year, the ACR goes to Washington, D.C., to encourage Congress to strengthen NIH funding. Support for rheumatology research programs is essential to the development of innovative treatments that will improve the quality of life for our patients and lead to more cost-effective care. Adequate funding from NIH is necessary to ensure a healthy academic rheumatologic community so that we have enough competent educators to teach the next generation of rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals.
The ACR also advocates for the formulation of public policy to improve the care of people with arthritis and other rheumatic diseases. The recently passed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included many important provisions to improve healthcare access for our patients. The ACR, along with other physician and patient organizations, secured increased reimbursement for bone density testing, which allows practices to continue providing these necessary services in-office and not in a hospital setting.
Through the REF, the ACR seeks to increase research in the rheumatic diseases while fostering the development of early career investigators. The REF meets a vital need in the community, providing funding from the early years of medical and graduate school, through fellowship training, and into the early years of a career in academic research. The REF is committed to supporting research and training that advances the prevention, treatment, and cure of rheumatic diseases.
Within Our Reach
In 2006, the REF launched the Within Our Reach campaign. The ACR and REF determined that a targeted research funding effort in RA was needed due to a dramatic decline in NIH and Arthritis Foundation (AF) funding. A study at that time demonstrated that significantly more money was going to other diseases that were much less prevalent than RA. The goal of Within Our Reach was to rekindle interest in RA research, and four years in to the campaign that is exactly what has happened.
Through the Within Our Reach campaign, the REF has built an infrastructure to support additional groundbreaking discoveries and test hypotheses directly related to patient care that did not exist previously. Through this extensive research program, which includes a rigorous grant application and peer-review process, the REF has funded investigators with novel, innovative research projects in RA. To date, $24 million has been committed to fund 54 outstanding investigators across the country. These investigators are established and well-respected researchers, and a number of them have changed direction in their research efforts to specifically focus on RA. Additionally, the success of these investigators has resulted in 65 publications in peer-reviewed journals in just the last three years, and several investigators have received additional funding from the NIH. In fact, since 2007, NIH funding for arthritis has increased $24 million (not counting stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009).