A Guideline-Driven Approach to RA: Disease Monitoring, Treatment Selection, and Patient Preference

Dr Jeffrey Curtis is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr Curtis received a Medical Degree (MD) and a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, OR. He subsequently completed a residency in internal medicine at Oregon Health & Science University and a fellowship in rheumatology at UAB. He completed graduate work in informatics at Stanford University and is board certified by the American Board of Preventive Medicine in Clinical Informatics. He received his Master of Science (MS) degree in epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. 

Dr Curtis currently holds the William J. Koopman Endowed Professorship in Rheumatology and Immunology at UAB. He is the Co-Director of the UAB Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERTs) of Musculoskeletal Disorders, which has a major emphasis on evaluating the safety and comparative effectiveness of medications for rheumatic diseases. Additionally, as the Director of the UAB Arthritis Clinical Intervention Program, he leads the clinical trials unit for the rheumatology division at UAB, with a particular focus on rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA). He is the Co-Director of the UAB Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics Research (PEER) Unit. PEER uses multiple large data sources to study comparative effectiveness questions across multiple chronic diseases. These data sources include national administrative data from Medicare and commercial health plans, electronic health record data, and large registries. In 2012, he was awarded the Henry Kunkel Young Investigator Award by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and was accepted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) in 2016.

The evaluation of the efficacy, comparative effectiveness, and safety of the medications used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and spondyloarthritis are among Dr Curtis's research interests. He served on the Core Expert Panel for the ACR's 2008, 2012, and 2015 Recommendations for the Use of Non-Biologic and Biologic Disease Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs in RA. He was the Deputy Director for a collaborative project between the FDA, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and a number of academic centers studying the safety of biologic agents using multiple, pooled national data sources. He is the Co-PI of the PCORI-funded Patient Powered Research Network "Arthritis-Power" registry, focused on RA, psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis. He also leads the multi-center NIH-funded large pragmatic randomized controlled trial "VERVE," studying the safety and effectiveness of the live herpes zoster vaccine in patients receiving biologic agents. He is a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Herpes Zoster workgroup. In 2015, he was appointed as a member to the FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee.

Dr Curtis also studies risk factors for and outcomes of osteoporosis. He was a member of the ACR's task force to update recommendations for the management of glucocorticoid induced osteoporosis (GIOP). He served on the ASBMR Task Force on Atypical Subtrochanteric and Diaphyseal Fractures. 

Dr Curtis is a member of the American College of Rheumatology, the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology, the American Medical Informatics Association, and the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research. He has been on the editorial board for Arthritis & Rheumatism, Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, and Arthritis Care & Research. He has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts, review articles, and book chapters.