Advancing arthritis public health approaches through national organizations - the arthritis foundation is the largest voluntary health organization with a mission to conquer arthritis

We have over 70 years of experience, accomplishments, and innovations that have improved the lives of people impacted by arthritis throughs support, science, and advocacy. We are confident that we have the expertise, ability, and capacity to deliver on the CDC?s stated outcomes for component 1, strategy b as described in the funding opportunity announcement by expanding the national provision of consumer arthritis information and intervention referral services. Funding from the CDC will support our helpline for people impacted by arthritis (helpline) program. Our primary goal is delivering timely, personalized, and impactful information to consumers that present them with actionable items from which they can choose. Funding will also support our long-term outcomes for the program: outcome #1: we will increase confidence in our program and encourage repeated utilization of IT by ensuring that 100% of consumers receive a response from our helpline within two business days of contact throughout the grant period. Outcome #2: through increased usage of our helpline program, there will be a 10% increase in referrals to aaebi offerings, including our own walk with ease program, over the previous grant period. Outcome #3: as a result of our improvement process focused on response and quality, at least 85% of consumers who complete a follow-up survey will report being satisfied by their helpline experience throughout the grant period. The focus of our proposed program is our helpline, established with CDC funding and launched april 2016. Our toll-free helpline will be available to the public 24 hours a day, 365 days a year via telephone or email. The helpline will be staffed by three full-time helpline specialists and one full-time helpline director. All helpline specialists possess years of prior experience in public health ? Particularly arthritis ? Sectors and assisting people with case management, referral coordination, and resource research. Our helpline director has over a decade of experience in the public health field focusing on quality improvement, team leadership, data integrity, training, and consumer experience. Our proposal seeks to build on the success and demonstrated need for our helpline program to increase awareness of the resource, integrate language translation services to increase accessibility, and grow our internal resource library to provide the best information possible to our consumers.