June 26 marks the Indigenous Juvenile Arthritis Day, a day dedicated to increase awareness over early signs and symptoms of juvenile arthritis and to ease the focus of resources for this battle. The campaign was initiated by the Support Our Arthritic Kids Foundation and targets a condition that currently affects 300 000 children nationwide, making it one of the most common childhood diseases in the US. However in under-served communities, this illness is overlooked or misdiagnosed until it is fully in a flare state.s

High rates of several autoimmune diseases have been described in indigenous North American adults,8 including rheumatoid arthritis,9,10 systemic lupus erythematosus,11,12 and spondyloarthropathy.13 Few studies have investigated the prevalence or incidence of JIA in indigenous North American populations and none have used the current JIA classification criteria. One study of JRA using administrative billing codes in two regions of the Indian Health Service (IHS) from 1998-2000 estimated a high prevalence, with variation by region.14 A study of the Canadian Inuit population in the 1970s-80s found that spondyloarthropathy was present at higher rates than JRA in children, but the incidence of both was high.

This data was provided by the research from: Beverly Khodra, BSE, Anne Stevens, MD, PhD, Elizabeth D. Ferucci, MD, MPH