News and information about the National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases (NDB) and arthritis and rheumatology research. Written for NDB participants and anyone with a rheumatic disease.
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Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Checking in with Dr. Elizabeth Benito-Garcia
Dr. Elizabeth Benito-Garcia is not a new face around the NDB. She is a graduate of the CHORD (The Centocor Health Outcomes in Rheumatic Diseases) fellowship program and has already collaborated on arthritis research with Dr. Wolfe and the NDB. The CHORD Fellowship is a training program for rheumatologists-in-training interested in furthering their knowledge and expertise in arthritis research. Drs. Wolfe, Theodore Pincus of Vanderbilt University, and Hyon K. Choi of Harvard oversee the program.
In the second half of 2003, Dr. Garcia launched a project in Portugal to build a national arthritis database similar to the NDB in the United States. She translated the NDB questionnaire (the same questionnaire you just received) into Portuguese and began interviewing patients and collecting data. We now have over 100 Portuguese patients participating in the NDB.
Recently we caught-up with Dr. Garcia and she kindly gave us an update on how her work is going.
Although the Portuguese patients in the NDB can be used in studies with US patients, it’s often helpful to look at people from one country separately. The databank makes this easy for researchers. One reason to do this is that certain factors, such as what foods we eat or how labor-intensive our work is, affect our health. Hereditary traits also affect health. These factors can sometimes be linked to health characteristics of a country or culture.
“Much can be learned from each country,” Dr. Benito-Garcia said.
What are the differences between Portugal and the US when in comes to arthritis? “Not enough studies have been done in Portugal to answer this question adequately,” Dr. Benito-Garcia said. “It is believed that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is less common and less severe in Portugal. Also, socioeconomic status level is lower in Portugal when compared to the US.
But treatments are exactly the same. Dr. Benito-Garcia said that there is much work to do in Portugal to be able to understand how arthritis affects the population. Portugal does not have well-organized research teams doing patient-based work.
Not to worry though, she’s working to fix that. Her future goals are to “set up an organized patient-oriented research organization in Portugal, help start training programs for clinician researchers and increase patient-oriented research in Portugal.”
We’ll be watching and keeping you up to date with her progress.
Dr. Elizabeth Benito-Garcia is not a new face around the NDB. She is a graduate of the CHORD (The Centocor Health Outcomes in Rheumatic Diseases) fellowship program and has already collaborated on arthritis research with Dr. Wolfe and the NDB. The CHORD Fellowship is a training program for rheumatologists-in-training interested in furthering their knowledge and expertise in arthritis research. Drs. Wolfe, Theodore Pincus of Vanderbilt University, and Hyon K. Choi of Harvard oversee the program.
In the second half of 2003, Dr. Garcia launched a project in Portugal to build a national arthritis database similar to the NDB in the United States. She translated the NDB questionnaire (the same questionnaire you just received) into Portuguese and began interviewing patients and collecting data. We now have over 100 Portuguese patients participating in the NDB.
Recently we caught-up with Dr. Garcia and she kindly gave us an update on how her work is going.
Although the Portuguese patients in the NDB can be used in studies with US patients, it’s often helpful to look at people from one country separately. The databank makes this easy for researchers. One reason to do this is that certain factors, such as what foods we eat or how labor-intensive our work is, affect our health. Hereditary traits also affect health. These factors can sometimes be linked to health characteristics of a country or culture.
“Much can be learned from each country,” Dr. Benito-Garcia said.
What are the differences between Portugal and the US when in comes to arthritis? “Not enough studies have been done in Portugal to answer this question adequately,” Dr. Benito-Garcia said. “It is believed that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is less common and less severe in Portugal. Also, socioeconomic status level is lower in Portugal when compared to the US.
But treatments are exactly the same. Dr. Benito-Garcia said that there is much work to do in Portugal to be able to understand how arthritis affects the population. Portugal does not have well-organized research teams doing patient-based work.
Not to worry though, she’s working to fix that. Her future goals are to “set up an organized patient-oriented research organization in Portugal, help start training programs for clinician researchers and increase patient-oriented research in Portugal.”
We’ll be watching and keeping you up to date with her progress.
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Now available for your support group or arthritis meetings....Our new pamphlets explain what we do and how you and can help. Each one has a postage-paid postcard to request more information or join the project. The pamphlets and a small table-top stand are available free from the NDB. Just send us an email!