Objectives:~To understand the natural history of osteoarthritis (OA) at different joints (knee, hip, hand, foot and lumbar).~To identify different phenotypes of OA (e.g., generalized OA, rapidly progressive knee and hand OA, tibiofemoral OA and patellofemoral OA), their association with pain (e.g., peripheral pain, central pain, nociceptive pain and neuropathic pain) and consequences.~To examine risk factors of OA (lifestyle habits, nutritional, metabolic, anatomical and genetic factors, etc.) at each joint as well as multiple joints.~To determine the association between x-ray structure change, ultrasound synovial changes and pain and other symptoms of OA at knee and hand joints within the large-sample community-based population.~To predict the progression of knee and hand OA within new-onset early-stage knee and hand OA patients, and to identify the rapidly progressive knee and hand OA phenotypes and their related risk factors.~To investigate the association between gut microbiota and OA.~To investigate the association between oral microbiota and OA.~Design: This is a prospective community-based cohort study.~Participants: Subjects included in this study were a randomly selected sample of residents, aged 50 years or older from rural mountainous communities of Longshan County, Hunan Province, China. 4000 people were planned to be recruited, divided into three sub-cohorts. 1,469 participants were enrolled in sub-cohort 1 in 2015, and two follow-ups have been completed in 2016 and 2017. 1,267 participants were enrolled in sub-cohort 2 in 2018. 1,340 participants were enrolled in sub-cohort 3 in 2019. Each sub-cohort will be followed every three years regularly.
The purpose of this study is to examine the natural history, phenotypes and risk factors of osteoarthritis (OA) and pain at different joints, and to examine the association between OA structure changes, inflammation and pain for knee and hand OA.