James F. Fries

Clinical Focus

• Immunology and Rheumatology
• Rheumatology

Professional Education

• Board Certification: Internal Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine (1970)
• Residency: SUMC - Graduate Medical Education, CA (1969)
• Fellowship: Johns Hopkins University, MD (1968)
• Residency: Johns Hopkins University, MD (1966)
• Internship: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, MD (1965)

Web Site Links

• Arthritis, Rheumatism, and Aging Medical Information System

Research Interests

My research uses large longitudinal data banks of patients with chronic diseases, particularly rheumatic diseases, and senior individuals undergoing the aging process and related infirmities to perform studies of natural history of disease, toxicity of medications, identification of subsets of patients with special characteristics, prediction of high risk individuals, elaboration of treatment strategies, computation and the costs of care for chronic diseases, development of risk factor models for osteoarthritis and musculoskeletal aging, and other clinical epidemiologic subjects. The central resource is ARAMIS (Arthritis Rheumatism and Aging Medical Information System) which involves 17 centers in the United States and Canada and has just been refunded by the National Institutes of Health for years 26-30. Fellows are trained for academic positions in rheumatology or clinical epidemiology. Approximately 60 projects are underway at any given time and an excess of 900 peer reviewed publications have been published from the ARAMIS group of investigators. Related to the ARAMIS endeavors is the Post-Marketing Surveillance Program, which works with the AHCPR, the FDA, and industry to provide information on drug toxicities and drug benefits which were not well-documented or understood at the time of drug release. The studies employ pharmacoeconomic and pharmacoepidemiologic techniques. Information science applications are pursued by a technical computer programming staff. The ARAMIS staff include clinicians, epidemiologists, biostaticians, health economists, and health service researchers.

Publications

• The irreversible component of the disability index of the health assessment questionnaire: comment on the article by Aletaha et al. Fries JF, "Arthritis Rheum" 2007 ; 4 (56) : 1368-9; author reply 1369-70
• Improving patient reported outcomes using item response theory and computerized adaptive testing. Chakravarty EF, Bjorner JB, Fries JF "J Rheumatol" 2007 ; 6 (34) : 1426-31
• Proteomic analysis of secreted proteins in early rheumatoid arthritis: anti-citrulline autoreactivity is associated with up regulation of proinflammatory cytokines. Hueber W, Tomooka BH, Zhao X, Kidd BA, Drijfhout JW, Fries JF, van Venrooij WJ, Metzger AL, Genovese MC, Robinson WH "Ann Rheum Dis" 2007 ; 6 (66) : 712-9
• Health status disparities in ethnic minority patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a cross-sectional study. Bruce B, Fries JF, Murtagh KN "J Rheumatol" 2007 ; 7 (34) : 1475-9
• More relevant, precise, and efficient items for assessment of physical function and disability: moving beyond the classic instruments. Fries JF, Bruce B, Bjorner J, Rose M "Ann Rheum Dis" 2006 : (65 Suppl 3) : iii16-21