Editorial doi:10.1093/rheumatology/ket222

The COPCORD world of musculoskeletal pain and arthritis Deeply rooted in the community Musculoskeletal (MSK) pain and arthritis are universal problems but pain is difficult to measure. In 1981 the ILAR and the World Health Organization (WHO) together launched the WHO ILAR Community Oriented Programme for Control of Rheumatic Diseases (COPCORD) to fill the gap in the lack of data about MSK pain and arthritis in developing countries. COPCORD is a low-cost, low-infra-structure programme based on regional resources. Using a fairly uniform approach and validated methods, the COPCORD stage I survey (three phases) was complete