RA Awareness Week

Rheumatoid Arthritis Awareness Week (RAAW) is an annual campaign created by NRAS to raise awareness of the condition and eliminate misconceptions by educating and informing friends, family, employers of those with RA and the general population about what rheumatoid arthritis truly is.

What is RA Awareness Week?

Since the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS) was founded in 2001, one of our key aims has been to increase public understanding and awareness of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as distinct from other forms of arthritis. Whilst we have come a long way, there still remains a significant challenge in clarifying the misconceptions based around RA.

In 2013, NRAS started a campaign called Rheumatoid Arthritis Awareness Week (RAAW) to raise the awareness of the condition and eliminate these misconceptions by educating and informing friends, family, employers of those with RA and the general population about what rheumatoid arthritis truly is. RA is very different to osteoarthritis (OA) in that it can strike at many age over 16. It is an auto-immune disease, which is a key differentiating factor to OA and means that in addition to joints, it can affect internal organs such as the heart, lungs, eyes. There are very serious consequences to late diagnosis or lack of targeted appropriate treatment.

RAAW 2023

Help us raise awareness of Rheumatoid Arthritis during RA Awareness Week 11th – 15th September 2023. The theme of RA Awareness Week 2023 is #RAdrain – showing how day-to-day activities can drain your battery when you live with RA.

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RAAW 2022

Our Theme for RA Awareness week 2022 was #RAFactOrFiction, focusing on dispelling the myths that surround this incurable, invisible condition. The RA community, people living with RA, their families/carers and Healthcare professionals are only too aware of the misconceptions that other people can have around inflammatory arthritis, and we want to spread awareness of how misunderstood this condition is.

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RAAW 2021

For RA Awareness Week 2021, we focused on Mental and Physical Wellbeing for people living with RA. We hosted a wide variety of different sessions for people with RA to join to help them on their Wellbeing journey.

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RAAW 2020

RA Awareness Week has always been about raising awareness of RA and its impacts on all aspects of life. In 2020, especially taking into account recent events, the focus for NRAS RAAW was on physical and mental wellbeing.

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RAAW 2019

The theme of the 2019 campaign was #AnyoneAnyAge and the key message was: RA can affect anyone at any age over 16!

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RAAW 2018

The theme for our 2018 campaign was #ReframeRA. There can be confusion around the public’s perception of what rheumatoid arthritis is, which can impact their reaction when a person with RA tells them about their disease.

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NRAS in 2023

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