National Health Education Lupus Program

Directors of Health Promotion and Education (DHPE)
LEAP: Lupus Education and Awareness for
Patients, Professionals and Providers

Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs). This means that anyone who develops lupus will have lupus for the rest of their life. An accurate diagnosis of lupus can take up to six years.

Current research shows that at least 1.5 million Americans have lupus. More than 16,000 new cases of lupus are reported annually across the country. Women of color are two to three times more likely to develop lupus than Caucasians.

The purpose of the DHPE Lupus Health Education Program entitled LEAP is to reduce lupus related health disparities among racial and ethnic minority populations disproportionately affected by this disease by conducting a national lupus education initiative.

DHPE LEAP Goals:

• To emphasize lupus as a chronic disease;

• To engage primary care providers and health educators to learn the signs and symptoms of lupus to assist with reducing the diagnosis timeframe of lupus; and

• To increase the discussion of lupus among the targeted audience of women of color, especially African American women of child-bearing age.

DHPE LEAP National Program Objectives:

• To promote culturally and linguistically appropriate lupus training opportunities to health professionals, providers and students with assistance from The Lupus Initiative of American College of Rheumatology and WebMD [CMEs and CHES offered]

• To implement a local rural health community-level lupus awareness and education program at Robeson County Health Department, North Carolina, which will include optimal health gatherings for patients and awareness events at local churches
• To award mini-grants to community and faith-based groups with ties to state-level Offices of Minority Health to increase lupus awareness and education win minority communities
  
• To create and implement sustainable and highly effective partnerships to increase exposure to lupus education and access to resources for patients, such as with the National Medical Association, the Ohio Commission on Minority Health, the National Association of State Offices of Minority Health, the Consortium of African American Public Health Programs and others.