A tradition exists in Finland of longitudinal studies to analyze the long-term outcomes of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), including early studies in the 1970s and 1980s of work disability and premature mortality in patients with RA and follow-up studies of early RA cohorts. This article reviews long-term observations from the Finnish RA Combination Therapy Trial (FIN-RACo), a 2-year multicenter randomized controlled trial which has been continued as a longitudinal observational study after the initial two years. We also describe the Central Finland RA Database, which captures most patients who have been diagnosed with RA since 1980 in a district of a quarter of a million people.