As we close another year together, I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and your loved ones. For many people with arthritis, the holidays can be joyful and demanding, full of connection, but also with colder weather, fatigue, flares, or the extra effort it can take to keep up. So, this season is an important moment to pause, reflect, and celebrate the strength and generosity that define our arthritis community.
Your voices, questions, courage, and partnership fuel everything we do at Arthritis Consumer Experts (ACE).
Entering our 26th year, ACE is Canada’s largest and longest-standing patient-led arthritis organization, working every day on behalf of more than 6 million people living with arthritis in Canada. Our mission is clear: to provide the information, education, and advocacy support people with arthritis tell us they need. We also work closely with other arthritis organizations in research, clinical care, and the patient world to champion culturally appropriate, equitable access to care and treatments. Every step we take is rooted in lived experience and guided by evidence. We first listen to you, then act.
This year, our community continued to grow across Canada and beyond. More than 57,000 subscribers and followers now engage with ACE information and education programs, and our social channels reach as many as 450,000 people with each post. In 2025, our education programming expanded to help people manage their disease more confidently. Our advocacy work engages federal, provincial, and territorial governments, informing health policy and access to treatments and services.
These moments of connection shape our work plan for 2026. Every day, we aim to listen carefully, strengthen trust, accelerate change, and scale our impact.
In the year ahead, we will deepen our response to the challenges and healthcare gaps that still hold people back. We will strengthen trust in treatment information, care pathways, and reimbursement systems. We will accelerate change so diagnosis, specialist access, medication coverage, surgery, and community-based supports are more timely, fair, and consistent. And we will scale the impact of ACE’s proven programs so more people benefit from our knowledge, advocacy, and partnerships.
Our major initiatives in 2026, including ACE’s National Surveys on arthritis access and wait times, and on women’s arthritis experiences will bring transparency to the journey of care. Survey respondents are the engine behind our work plan each year. What you share shapes our information and education programming and guides every aspect of our advocacy.
These surveys will inform new JointHealthTM education courses offering plain-language guidance on artificial intelligence and arthritis, as well as self-management for lupus.
Other programs, such as Arthritis at Home and our annual #CRArthritis event will continue to translate science into practical, reassuring tools for everyday life. Our policy and advocacy work will push for modernized drug plan reimbursement criteria, improved models of care, and accountability for reinvestment of biosimilars savings back into better arthritis care.
Guided by our Indigenous Advisor, Dr. Terri-Lynn Fox, and the Arthritis Community Learning Circle, ACE continues to walk the path of Truth and Reconciliation with humility, learning, and purpose. This work includes an ongoing audit and trauma-informed review of our programs and websites, and the co-creation of resources that respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s health Calls to Action (#18–24) in ways that are culturally safe and meaningful. A key part of this commitment is the Arthritis Call to Action website, an entry point for the arthritis community to learn about colonization, Indigenous health and ways of knowing, and to take concrete steps toward reconcili-action together.
This season, I’m filled with gratitude for Dr. Fox, our ACE team and members, our Scientific Advisor, Arthritis Research Canada, and our healthcare partners, volunteers, and supporters. Together, we are building a future where trust and confidence in arthritis care is not a privilege, but a guarantee.
Thank you for your trust, your strength, and your belief that accelerating change for the better is possible. From everyone at ACE, warm holiday wishes and a hopeful start to the new year.
Warm regards,
Cheryl
Cheryl Koehn
President, Arthritis Consumer Experts
Arthritis Consumer Experts and its team members acknowledge that they gather and work on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples - xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.