Michigan Lupus Epidemiology and Surveillance (MILES) Program Longitudinal Cohort Study

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Lupus is a prototypical autoimmune disease with a wide spectrum of illness that can be limited to the skin or can affect almost any tissue and organ in the body and cause severe morbidity and premature mortality. While there are several forms of lupus, systemic lupus erythematous (SLE) is the most common and serious form of lupus and has a variety of clinical manifestations. SLE affects from 320,000 to 1.5 million Americans and has strong disparities in incidence and prevalence, affecting women far more than men and minorities more than whites. The causes of SLE are unknown but are believed to be linked to genetic, environmental, and hormonal factors. Much of what is known about SLE comes from convenience samples and tertiary care centers that are not population-based and therefore biased toward the severe end of the disease spectrum. As a result there is a need for a basic epidemiologic understanding of SLE in order to understand the full clinical spectrum and population burden of the disease. The purpose of this funding announcement is to support a longitudinal study to follow an established population-based cohort with SLE to determine over time: 1) the treatment, health care access, and natural history (severity, morbidity, mortality, etc.) of lupus (systemic lupus erythematosus) and related outcomes; 2) factors (including genetic and other biological factors such as antibody levels) associated with outcomes of treatment, health care access and natural history; and 3) potential disparities and other factors associated with outcomes by categories of interest (e.g., gender and race/ethnic group).

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