The Addressing Lupus Pillars for Health Advancement (ALPHA) project is a unique global consensus initiative that seeks to identify and prioritize the fundamental barriers or knowledge gaps that will allow providers, researchers and scientists to improve diagnosis, treatment and systems of care for people with lupus.
Lupus Science & Medicine, a global peer-reviewed journal recently published a paper that shares findings from the Phase II research of the ALPHA project. In Phase II of the project, a Global Advisory Committee (GAC) of lupus experts established next steps for addressing top barriers in lupus, specifically within drug development, clinical care, and access to care.
GAC members are addressing each barrier through the following actions:
- Drug development – Update current lupus outcome measures and issuing a declarative consensus statement on steroid-sparing drugs.
- Clinical care – Lead the development of a consensus effort to define lupus. The new definition will build on current research definitions to include closely related immune-mediated inflammatory disorders, such as cutaneous variants. After establishing a consensus definition, it will be disseminated through publication and broader discussion.
- Access to care – Spearhead an effort to gain a better understanding of social determinants of health and contributors to health disparities, and investigate the unique access to care issues faced by children with lupus.
- Additional steps – Conduct an assessment of current biomarker development and data-sharing activities and identify gaps. The assessment will lead to the creation of standardized global data-sharing efforts and support international collective research collaborations.
Learn more about the ALPHA project.