Musculoskeletal Epidemiology Versus Arthritis - Better lives, Safer journey

In the UK, over 20 million people across all ages have problems with their joints, bones and muscles, which cause pain and impact all aspects of life, including work and school. The research described by our Consortium (a partnership between different research groups) will support people living with arthritis and other painful musculoskeletal conditions (including children) to improve their quality of life with these painful conditions. We bring together partners from Versus Arthritis Centres of Excellence, including researchers, clinicians and most importantly, people with lived experience of these conditions. We have worked together to identify five areas where evidence is currently lacking, stopping clinicians providing the best quality care and preventing people living with these conditions from being fully informed and involved in decision making. Health inequalities: people of different ages, from different backgrounds and living in different parts of the UK have very different healthcare experiences and outcomes. We will explore this, identifying opportunities to improve how doctors and other health professionals deliver care. Painful musculoskeletal conditions often begin in childhood, yet little is known about how these early symptoms progress to persistent (chronic) pain and if there is the potential to do things at an early stage to prevent this. We will identify those at high-risk of persistent pain with the aim of finding a way to prevent (or reduce) this. The impact of the menopause on arthritis and musculoskeletal pain has been identified by those with lived experience as being ignored. There is a lack of guidance for management of menopause-related pain, and the risks and benefits of hormone replacement therapy (used to treat the menopause) in those with arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions is currently unclear. We will address this major gap. People with musculoskeletal pain frequently take pain-relievers which may not work and often have side effects. We will identify the risks of taking common pain-relievers to inform shared decision making about when to take these drugs. Some of the medicines used to treat people require regular bloods tests. These can cause distress, particularly to children, are inconvenient, and expensive. We will determine how often these are really needed to reduce burden whilst maintaining safety. Rather than collecting a lot of new information, which is expensive and time-consuming, we will use existing data, including data routinely collected by the NHS (including prescriptions and blood test results). Other data comes from studies that have already been completed but could provide valuable insight. Using cutting-edge research methods on data we already have speeds up discovery of changes that could improve peoples’ lives. Research can only benefit people living with arthritis and other painful musculoskeletal conditions if it is known about and used. To make sure this happens we will share our new knowledge by working closely with the broadest range of partners, including the government, the NHS, clinicians and patient networks. Importantly, we aim to empower people living with these conditions, helping them to make informed decisions that will be beneficial to their health and wellbeing.