Clinical research studyRacial and Ethnic Disparities in Disease Activity in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis
Section snippets
Data Source
The CORRONA registry is a longitudinal observational cohort study of patients with rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis who are enrolled by participating rheumatologists in both community-based and academic clinical sites; the details have been published.13, 14 Over the study period, a total of 112 community-based practices and 32 academic practices contributed patient data to the registry. Approvals for data collection and analyses were obtained for academic and community-based practice
Demographic and Clinical Characteristics
Baseline demographic and clinical characteristics of the 2 study cohorts are summarized in Table 1. For both the 2005-2007 and 2010-2012 cohorts, the majority of the patients were female, with a higher proportion of female patients for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians versus white patients. In both cohorts, the mean age was approximately 60 years, although white patients were slightly older than the other racial/ethnic groups in both time periods. The majority of patients with
Discussion
In this study, we observed significant racial and ethnic variation in disease activity in a large US-based cohort of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. We also observed differences in functional status across racial and ethnic groups. In comparisons of minority groups versus white patients in both time periods, we observed that Hispanic patients had higher disease activity levels, whereas African American patients achieved lower rates of clinical remission. For both time periods, African
Conclusions
Despite the continued growth of newly approved disease-modifying antirheumatic drug options and the publication of recommendations for standardized disease activity monitoring and treatment strategies, our study indicates that racial and ethnic disparities continue to exist across a network of US-based rheumatology practices. Interventions to address these disparities for minority patients with rheumatoid arthritis are needed to improve clinical outcomes.
References (26)
The epidemiology of rheumatoid arthritis
Rheum Dis Clin North Am
(2001)The CORRONA database
Autoimmun Rev
(2006)- et al.
Genetic basis of autoantibody positive and negative rheumatoid arthritis risk in a multi-ethnic cohort derived from electronic health records
Am J Hum Genet
(2011) - et al.
Predicting mortality in patients with rheumatoid arthritis
Arthritis Rheum
(2003) - et al.
Societal cost of rheumatoid arthritis patients in the US
Curr Med Res Opin
(2010) - et al.
American College of Rheumatology 2008 recommendations for the use of nonbiologic and biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs in rheumatoid arthritis
Arthritis Rheum
(2008) - et al.
2012 update of the 2008 American College of Rheumatology recommendations for the use of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs and biologic agents in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis
Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken)
(2012) - et al.
EULAR recommendations for the management of rheumatoid arthritis with synthetic and biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs
Ann Rheum Dis
(2010) - et al.
Treating rheumatoid arthritis to target: recommendations of an international task force
Ann Rheum Dis
(2010) - et al.
Differences in clinical status measures in different ethnic/racial groups with early rheumatoid arthritis: implications for interpretation of clinical trial data
J Rheumatol
(2007)
Health status disparities in ethnic minority patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a cross-sectional study
J Rheumatol
Racial and ethnic disparities in disease activity and function among persons with rheumatoid arthritis from university-affiliated clinics
Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken)
A pilot study to determine whether disability and disease activity are different in African-American and Caucasian patients with rheumatoid arthritis in St. Louis, Missouri, USA
J Rheumatol
Cited by (85)
Racial disparities in pregnancy outcomes among women with rheumatic diseases: A systematic literature review
2023, Seminars in Arthritis and RheumatismMapping two decades of multiple sclerosis rehabilitation trials: A systematic scoping review and call to action to advance the study of race and ethnicity in rehabilitation research
2023, Multiple Sclerosis and Related DisordersDisease profile of rheumatoid arthritis and its complications in hispanic population
2023, American Journal of the Medical SciencesDisparities in burden of disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis across racial and ethnic groups
2024, Clinical Rheumatology
Funding: JDG was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (K23 AR054412) and the NIH/National Center for Research Resources (5UL1RR029893). LRH has received support from the NIH (AR053856).
Conflict of Interest: The Consortium of Rheumatology Researchers of North America (CORRONA) registry has received financial support unrelated to this study from Abbott, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Pfizer, UCB, and Vertex. JDG receives consulting fees from AstraZeneca, CORRONA, Novartis, and Pfizer, and is a shareholder in CORRONA. YS, GR, and LRH have research contracts with CORRONA through the University of Massachusetts. JMK is an employee and stockholder of CORRONA; receives consulting fees from Amgen, Abbott, Genetech, and Pfizer; and has research grants from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech, Pfizer, UCB, and HGS. YY has received consulting fees from Abbott, BMS, Celgene, Genentech, Merck, Pfizer, Horizon, and UCB, and research support from BMS, Celgene, Janssen (Centocor), and Genentech.
Authorship: All authors had access to the data and played a role in writing this manuscript.