American Kidney Fund Inc

Public education, awareness and prevention activities:awareness and prevention 35.5 million americans1 in 7 adults have chronic kidney disease (ckd), and most don't realize they have it. Akf's education programs help individuals identify their risks for ckd and manage ckd, kidney failure and co-morbidities. A hallmark of our awareness-building work was our fifth annual kidney action week, held from march 18-22, 2024. The virtual educational event was streamed through a digital conference platform and simulcasted through akf's facebook and youtube social channels. Approximately 5,000 people preregistered for the event, with more than 82,000 people viewing the combined live and archived sessions. We provided prevention and awareness messaging throughout the year on our social media channels, which grew to 220,000 followers in 2024.public educationwe continually enhance our education content and offerings. Our website had more than 16 million views in 2024 from people looking for kidney health information. We also continued to enrich our award-winning kidney kitchen website, a resource for planning a kidney-friendly diet, and the site had more than 1.6 million views in 2024. We also launched a major national awareness campaign focused on reducing health disparities in kidney disease, and we launched the first annual nationwide amkd awareness day to bring attention to a genetic variant that can make people of west and central african ancestry more susceptible to more severe, rapidly progressing kidney disease. We continued to run awareness campaigns which focus on managing various aspects of kidney disease and its co-morbidities. We also continued to provide our kidney health coach peer-to-peer community outreach program, which now includes nearly 7,000 coaches nationwide. For children, living with kidney disease is extremely challenging. Akf offers a free, nationwide online virtual camp program for pediatric kidney patients. The campers participate monthly in moderated activities and discussions that allow them to connect with other children around the country who are experiencing the same challenges. In 2024, nearly 200 children participated in akf's virtual camp, camp connections, which also hosted a special program for children living with cystinosis, a rare kidney disease. Akf is a strong and independent voice advocating for policies that improve access to health care and strengthen the quality of care for individuals with kidney disease. We work with congress, the administration, federal agencies, and state governments to advance legislation and regulatory policies important to kidney patients and their families. Engaging patients and caregivers around advocacy issues is central to this work. In 2024, we grew our advocacy network to over 36,000 patients and family members and provided opportunities for engagement: two in-person fly-ins, including one focused on rare kidney diseases; and 4 in-person health equity trainings in cities across the country. In november 2024, we held our second patient access initiative summit, where we focused on issues like caregiving, mental health and rare kidney disease, as well as exploring ways to create incentives for screening and treatment to avoid or delay kidney failure. We published our fourth annual "state of the states: living donor protection report card," which holds each state accountable for the laws it has in place to make it easier for people to be living kidney donors. Since akf began spearheading the living donor protection advocacy work in 2018, 32 states have enacted laws that remove roadblocks to living organ donation.professional educationakf develops courses that are provided online and meet the continuing education requirements for professionals who treat kidney patients. In 2024, there were more than 167,000 akf courses completed by physicians, nurses, social workers, dialysis technicians, dietitians, health educators and other renal care professionals.

Research: established in 1988, akf's clinical scientist in nephrology program has provided research funding to many of nephrology's brightest scholars. Many former csn fellows have gone on to distinguished careers in the field, conducting groundbreaking research that advances knowledge and treatment of kidney disease. In 2024, akf selected two new fellows. Dr. Kavita mistry from beth israel deaconess medical center will be will be using cutting-edge single cell sequencing technologies to gain insights into the initial events that lead to kidney inflammation in acute interstitial nephritis. Dr. Marcelle tuttle from tufts medical center will be working on research that focuses on the development of pulmonary hypertension in patients with chronic kidney disease. Akf took major steps in addressing the problem of unknown causes of kidney disease (uckd) by continuing the implementation of aspects of akf's uckd roadmap. These included the launch of our new know your cause and know your plan websites and awareness campaigns, hosting our second rare disease fly-in, and hosting our second, in-person uckd summit on september 17, 2024, bringing together patients, family members, and renal professionals.