In August, we announced Solve M.E., in partnership with The Brain Inflammation Collaborative (BIC), the launch of the unhide® Solve Together Unified Platform, a digital health tool designed to uncover hidden connections between inflammation, chronic illness, and overall health.
Building upon Solve M.E.’s original Solve Together platform and incorporating the unhide project’s innovative focus on brain inflammation-related symptoms and conditions, the Unified Platform is an exciting resource for patients and researchers alike. The easy-to-use, secure platform allows patients to contribute data through symptom surveys, validated assessments, wearable devices, and health history to support research across 30+ related conditions.
As of this week, the unhide® Solve Together Unified Platform will now accept pediatric participants ages 2 and up.
“Most clinical and research studies exclude children and teens, which means they are missing from crucial data used to improve diagnosis, treatments, and outcomes,” said Natasha Graves, MPH, MBA, CHES of BIC. Research involving children and teens is typically challenging scientifically, ethically, and recruitment-wise. Traditional barriers to including these age groups in research include multiple stages of development, varying reading and comprehension levels, and differing investigator expertise, increasing both the workload and expenses for researchers. “We have worked tremendously hard to include pediatric participants and fill a critical gap in research for families impacted by chronic conditions and brain inflammation”.
Parents and guardians can now enroll their young children (ages 2-6) and participate on their behalf. School-age children (ages 7–12) can complete surveys and track symptoms side-by-side with their parents/guardians. Teens (ages 13+) can enroll themselves with parental consent, and will also be able to link data from wearable devices, such as an Apple Watch. This milestone expands the reach of The Unified Platform, making it one of the few large-scale digital health research initiatives actively collecting real-world data from pediatric participants.
Solve President and CEO Emily Taylor noted, “It’s been a long-time goal to fill the gaps in pediatric ME/CFS research. Thanks to our partnership with BIC, Solve has finally achieved that goal and celebrates the first ME/CFS real-world data platform for children ages 2+ in the U.S.”
“For too long, children and teenagers have not been able to narrate the lived experience of their illnesses themselves, and their voices have been missing from clinical research. Allowing teens and school-age children to participate directly in unhide® changes that. In addition, enrolling pediatric participants will allow researchers to better understand the effects of chronic illness on critical periods of brain development across the lifespan,” said Dr. Megan Fitzgerald, the platform Principal Investigator.
The Unified Platform tracks symptoms, wearable device data, and health experiences across 30+ chronic conditions to accelerate research on brain inflammation, immune dysfunction, and related illnesses. Pediatric participation will help researchers understand how these conditions begin, progress, and impact quality of life in children and teens, paving the way for earlier interventions and better care.
Families interested in joining can learn more and sign up at www.unhidenow.org.