Monitoring of disease activity in rheumatology is challenging and depends on the use of valid and reliable instruments that enable healthcare providers and patients to quantify and evaluate disease activity in a standardized way. In addition, such measures may be used to determine the efficacy of interventions, guide patient care, develop evidence-based recommendations, and direct health policy.

To date, the usefulness of disease activity measures in clinical practice and research has been variable. Measures used in clinical trials may be too cumbersome to use in clinical practice and practitioners may be using methods that have not been validated or culturally adapted.

We invite authors to submit original research and review articles that describe and evaluate existing tools for measurement of disease activity, and provide innovative ideas for future developments in this area. We also welcome reports of studies assessing the usefulness and applicability of disease activity measures in clinical practice. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Characteristics of disease activity measures: validity, reliability, and responsiveness
• Challenges in the transfer of disease activity measures from the clinical-trials setting to physicians' offices
• Issues in the use of disease activity measures across cultures
• Importance of clinical skills in accurate and reliable assessment of disease activity
• Assessing improvement, minimal disease activity, and remission in rheumatoid arthritis
• Composite measures of disease activity in psoriatic arthritis
• Assessing disease activity in systemic lupus erythematosus
• Instruments for measuring disease activity in ankylosing spondylitis
• Measurement of disease activity in systemic sclerosis, Sjogren's syndrome, systemic vasculitis, polymyositis and dermatomyositis, and juvenile chronic arthritis
• Disease activity instruments and physician reimbursement