The National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) promotes awareness of osteoporosis as a preventable and treatable disease. It is funded by various sources and provides information to the public and healthcare professionals with scientific objectivity. Osteoporosis affects 10 million Americans, with 80% being women, and NOF promotes lifelong bone health principles to prevent it.
The National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) is a Washington, DC-based organization established to promote awareness of osteoporosis, a bone disease in the United States, and to support its treatment. NOF seeks to educate the public, professionals and government officials to recognize that osteoporosis – once considered a common, even inevitable, effect of old age – is a potentially preventable and treatable disease. The National Osteoporosis Foundation is funded by a variety of sources, including government grants, other charitable foundations, and contributions from businesses and individuals. Corporate partners support and participate in awareness activities, such as National Osteoporosis Awareness and Prevention Month each May.
In the spring of 1984, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) convened a Consensus Development Conference on osteoporosis with the goal of adopting federal guidelines and strategies for a major disease. Life expectancy was increasing, the demographic of the United States was expected to change with the imminent retirement of the baby-boomer generation, and public health care costs were accelerating. Representatives from a broad range of medical fields gathered the latest scientific information on osteoporosis at the time and provided recommendations to the NIH. The conference attracted media attention and, from the ensuing flood of questions from the audience involved, it became clear to the organizers that a permanent clearing house was needed for the dissemination of information. By the end of that year, the National Osteoporosis Foundation had been created.
NOF is a voluntary non-profit organization dedicated specifically to osteoporosis and human bone health in general. While compliant with standards of good operational practice, NOF maintains independence from the National Institute of Health. In its attempts to inform both the general public and healthcare professionals with scientific objectivity, the NOF does not endorse specific medical products, services, or viewpoints. Governed by a board of trustees with a medical background, the foundation seeks to be particularly careful to provide a wide range of information within its publications and educational outreach programs.
Osteoporosis is a disease characterized by a weakening of skeletal bone tissue. The National Osteoporosis Foundation estimates that, at any given time, various stages of osteoporosis could affect 10 million Americans, a disproportionate 80 percent of whom are women. In addition to the crippling progression of the disease, what might otherwise be a simple bruise from a minor fall can cause bones that have become abnormally brittle to fracture easily. Through public education and community outreach, lifelong bone health principles, such as the importance of vitamin D and calcium, are promoted as effective ways to prevent osteoporosis. Through the dissemination of research and the education of healthcare professionals, the National Osteoporosis Foundation attempts to support the lives of those with the condition and press for an eventual cure.
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