Burden of Disease: Poor mobility, often a consequence of diseases of bone and joint or of fall-related injuries, is a significant burden to the Canadian health care system and to society. A notable contributor to this burden is osteoarthritis (OA) - a painful degenerative joint disease that limits the performance of even simple daily tasks. It is very common in the elderly. Joint replacement surgery is currently the only effective treatment for advanced OA.

A second potentially crippling disease is osteoporosis. The complications of osteoporosis include fall-related hip fracture, debilitating wrist fracture, as well as painful vertebral fractures that can occur with minimal or no trauma. Fractures are not benign – they are associated with increased death rates. Fall-related injuries cost Canadians well in excess of $1 billion annually.

To meet the needs of our aging population today, and to prepare for the demographic realities of the future, there is an urgent need to develop more effective solutions for the problems that affect bones and joints. Towards this end, the Federal Government, through the Canada Foundation for Innovation, partnered with the University of British Columbia, B.C. Government and private donors (through the VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation) to create the Centre for Hip Health and Mobility. CHHM aims to deliver research solutions that will improve clinicians’ ability to: prevent, detect, and treat arthritis and fractures using novel tools and techniques, cost-effective interventions and advanced surgical solutions.

The Centre for Hip Health and Mobility is a community of scientists, clinicians, decision-makers and stakeholders whose goals are to:

• prevent falls and fractures, improving health and mobility across lifespan
• detect arthritis at an early stage by superior risk factor profiling, novel imaging, and wide-reaching public education partnerships
• treat bone and joint disease by designing effective behavioural and clinical interventions