The Vasculitis Foundation has launched 2016 May Vasculitis Awareness Month. The awareness campaign’s goal is to raise awareness about vasculitis, a rare, autoimmune disease affecting more than 30,000 patients each year.
This year’s theme “Victory over Vasculitis” highlights some of the critical issues and challenges facing vasculitis patients.
“The theme helps us to identify and define what victory would look like from the patient’s perspective,” says Joyce A. Kullman, executive director of the VF. “There are so many issues such as earlier diagnosis, less evasive, more effective treatment, and educating both the patients and doctors about vasculitis. Advances in these areas have been realized, but we still have a long way to go. Vasculitis Awareness Month is our chance to put these issues on an international stage.”
Using social media is key to spreading the word. “We target our awareness messaging not only to our patients, but we encourage them to share our information with their network of support—typically friends, family and work colleagues. This year we have created an awareness “toolkit” found on the VF website that makes it easier for anyone to share the information.”
In addition to a concentrated social media messaging campaign, the VF also hosts special events and provides resources to educate patients and physicians about vasculitis.
The Vasculitis Foundation is the international organization for people with vasculitis. The VF empowers patients through disease education, raises awareness of vasculitis in the general public and medical community, and funds research to determine the cause, develop more effective treatments, and discover a cure. The Vasculitis Foundation is committed to improving the lives of current and future patients and is positioned as the definitive resource for patients, family members, medical professionals and researchers seeking information about vasculitis.
