Background: Community awareness that children and young people (CYP) get arthritis is low[1]. Low awareness is associated with delays in diagnosis, worse clinical outcomes, and adverse societal factors such as stigma and isolation. Raising awareness of childhood arthritis is crucial in combatting these issues to improve the lives of those living with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA).

Objectives: To develop and implement novel and innovative approaches to raising awareness of childhood arthritis.

Methods: Juvenile Arthritis Research, a patient organisation in the UK that focusses solely on Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) developed a range of awareness-raising projects with the intention of increasing awareness of childhood arthritis in the general community.

These projects have included:

• Developing physical and online resources – the #ThinkJIA campaign – with support from rheumatologists, clinicians, healthcare professionals, parents and CYP;

• Supporting initiatives such as WORD Day through intensive social media campaigns;

• Providing physical resource packs to schools to raise awareness through bookmarks, stickers, badges, leaflets, and presentations;

• Empowering children and young people to raise awareness in their schools and communities;

• Converting an empty building into an information hub, with large-scale window films presenting awareness-raising messages;

• Supporting local community events by providing running tops and T-shirts with awareness-raising messaging; and

• Local and national media campaigns, based on the above projects.

Results: The awareness-raising projects have reached many thousands of people across the UK and worldwide (Table 1). Bringing an empty building back into use has generated significant interest from local people, and the large window films (Figure 2) are visible from the major road outside (with over 20,000 vehicles passing each day).

Figure 2.

Some of the window images raising awareness of childhood arthritis to 20,000 vehicles each day.

Conclusion: Raising awareness that CYP get arthritis is a vital step in reducing delays to diagnosis and reducing the burdens of isolation, loneliness and stigma. Innovative approaches are effective and low-cost tools to deliver key messages to the community, supported by high quality and verified clinical-based information.

REFERENCES: [1] Beesley RP & Beesley RM (2023) Community awareness of childhood arthritis in the UK. In press: Rheumatology Advances In Practice.

Acknowledgements: NIL.

Disclosure of Interests: None declared.