Many autoimmune diseases are characterized by the presence of autoantibodies. These may be present long before disease starts, but what triggers the transition from autoimmunity (the presence of the antibodies) to disease is unknown, but is likely to include both environmental exposures and genetic susceptibility. What are the risk factors for the transition to disease? Are these modifiable? In which patients is the risk... more »

Focusing recruitment on communities with a disproportionate burden of environmental exposures, develop and test a multi-level model to ascertain the burden of autoimmune inflammation, autoimmune disease, and reactive airway attributable to environmental factors at the 1) community/neighborhood, 2) household, 3) personal, 4) internal body burden, and 5) inflammatory biomarker response levels over time. Ascertain how genetic... more »

Preterm delivery is a serious problem. SLE and RA patients have increased pregnancy morbidity before diagnosis and their healthy sisters have increased rates of pregnancy complications. Therefore, pre-clinical autoimmunity or inflammation may affect pregnancy outcomes. Reproductive and family history, and rheumatic disease symptoms, would be collected and correlated with hsCRP levels and autoantibody production in a... more »

Autoimmune diseases afflict nearly 1 in 12 Americans and many more have autoantibodies but no evidence of clinical disease. Recent work has identified biomarkers or clinical symptoms which associate with subsequent developing development of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) or rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and NIH-funded prevention trials are underway. AoU provides a unique opportunity to identify at risk individuals through... more »