World Sjögren’s Day marks 40th anniversary of Sjögren’s Foundation

World Sjögren’s Day is held every July 23, the birthday of Henrik Sjögren, the Swedish ophthalmologist who first identified Sjögren’s syndrome in 1933, and this year, to observe the 40^th anniversary of the Sjögren’s Foundation, Amgen has pledged a dollar-to-dollar match up to $40,000, meaning donations supporting the foundation will have double the impact.

Awareness and education are crucial to improving the recognition, diagnosis, and management of Sjögren’s syndrome, a chronic autoimmune disorder that mostly affects women older than 40.

“This World Sjögren’s Day, use your voice to tell your story, encourage donations, and help us conquer the complexities of Sjögren’s,” the Sjögren’s Foundation stated on its webpage about the event. “It is a day where we encourage patients to use their voice and help us show the world that Sjögren’s is a serious, systemic, and prevalent disease.”

Education and awareness opportunities

Money raised on World Sjögren’s Day will help support research, including grants awarded by the foundation into the cause, prevention, detection, treatment, and cure for Sjögren’s, along with educational programs for physicians to develop their knowledge and clinical practice guidelines.

The funding will also assist in activities that advocate for patients, such as the foundation’s efforts to have Medicare coverage for dental care, and awareness programs such as Sjögren’s awareness ambassadors. These volunteers help implement the foundation’s campaigns to educate healthcare professionals in the U.S., increasing awareness within the medical community.

The foundation is also offering a shareable fact sheet to help people understand the disease’s causes, its symptoms, prevalence, and about the bottlenecks that contribute to delays in diagnosing it.

Through the foundation, patients and family members like Shannon Boxx and Lunda Wells are able to tell their stories. Boxx is a former soccer player for the U.S. women’s national team, while Wells, an American football coach and former player for the Dallas Cowboys, is married to a woman who lives with Sjögren’s.

The foundation also provides a World Sjögrens Day media kit that includes a social media tool kit with platform-specific sample posts to be shared with the hashtags #WorldSjögrensDay and #Sjögrens. The kit also includes sharable social media images.

Supporters may also purchase a limited-edition World Sjögren’s Day Awareness kit to inform their communities about the disease. The kit includes a thematic T-shirt, shopper tote, pen, and car magnet, along with flyers and brochures. It also includes a timeline with major milestones in Sjögren’s and a bookmark commemorating the foundation’s anniversary.

The foundation has also announced the registration for its Walk for Sjögren’s initiative, a nationwide program to raise awareness and funds.

This year’s theme is Conquering Sjögren’s, One Step at a Time! Upcoming events will take place Sept. 28 in Texas and Oct. 19 in New York, New England, and on the West Coast.