Independent news from the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance
May 1, 2024
News Media Collaborative

High rate of rheumatoid arthritis among American Indians prompts research partnership

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear
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jodi@imfreedomalliance.org https://twitter.com/JodiRave
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BY JACLYN COSGROVE jcosgrove@opubco.com

Oklahoma researchers and tribal clinic doctors are together to combat a disease that affects a high rate of American Indians.

Researchers at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation have formed a partnership with doctors at Chickasaw Nation and Cherokee Nation clinics to provide care for rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.

At the same time, the medical foundation enrolls patients at the clinic in research that helps them better understand, for example, why four times as many American Indians are affected by rheumatoid arthritis than those of European ancestry.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a form of arthritis that causes pain, swelling, stiffness and loss of function in a person’s joints, according to the National Institutes of Health.

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Posted in News Media Collaborative
Jodi Rave Spotted Bear
jodi@imfreedomalliance.org https://twitter.com/JodiRave

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear is the founder and director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization with offices in Bismarck, N.D. and the Fort Berthold Reservation. Jodi spent 15 years reporting for the mainstream press. She's been awarded prestigious Nieman and John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. She also an MIT Knight Science Journalism Project fellow. Her writing is featured in "The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity," published by Columbia University Press. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and she chairs the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. Jodi has won top journalism awards from mainstream and Native press organizations. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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