Lyme disease is a frequently misunderstood illness that requires significant resources to detect and treat—resources that are lacking in Black and Brown patient communities.

When these patients are finally diagnosed, it’s being done based on neurologic and arthropathic symptoms because the more available early signs were either ignored or overlooked. In fact, many Black and Brown patients present in emergency rooms with a Lyme rash and are turned away, being told “there's nothing there.”

Complicating the issue, all the symptoms of Lyme disease (fever, chills, headaches, stomachaches, nausea, vomiting) exist in other diseases. Therefore, it can take a long time for the patient to find a doctor willing to invest the time needed to positively confirm exposure to an infected tick and accurately diagnose Lyme disease.

Since detecting a Lyme rash on Black skin is so difficult, we're calling on technology to help make it easier. Introducing "The Lyme Bomb Detector."

This tool, fueled by artificial intelligence, enables people to check their skin for rashes and assess their risk using common smartphone camera technology.

All they have to do is take a picture and the tool takes it from there by analyzing the image using a neural network model which has been trained with hundreds of thousands of photos with different variations of visual Lyme symptoms. The tool also uses photo-manipulation presets to provide a high contrast result—effectively revealing the previously hidden rash.

We finally have a way for people of color to more easily and quickly identify the presence of a tick bite rash.

The incidence of Lyme disease is on the rise around the country, with a historic spike underway in urban areas, where many Black and Brown patients reside.

Managing dark-skinned patients with Lyme disease presents multiple challenges. Racial health disparities in the US healthcare system undermine ethnic patient outcomes in most diseases. Making matters worse, most medical training related to skin conditions has little or no representation of Black or Brown skin.

In fact, a recent study found that 1 in 3 Black patients who were newly diagnosed with Lyme disease already had related neurological complications—a sign that the disease may have been ignored initially and not caught early enough to intervene effectively.

Our strategy was to help close this significant racial gap in Lyme disease diagnosis and care by utilizing widely available smartphone camera tech (something many already have access to) to identify Lyme rashes quicker in people of color.

Smartphone imaging technology has seen leaps in innovation at staggering rates. Tech once reserved for commercial and feature film is now available on mobile devices. Powerful image editing is mere taps away. Our goal was to harness this power to level the diagnosis playing field for Black and Brown people.

Working with the Global Lyme Alliance and leading Lyme specialists, we designed an app powered by artificial intelligence using a proprietary Cognitive Core platform; it enables people to check their skin for rashes and assess their risk. All they have to do is take a picture and the tool takes it from there by analyzing the image using a neural network model which has been trained with hundreds of thousands of photos with different variations of visual symptoms.

The Lyme Bomb Detector tool is a must-have for everyone with Black or Brown skin. The greatest power of the tool is that it can help physicians overcome their own bias and let a computer algorithm contrast and evaluate the skin that is affected to hopefully give physicians a sharper eye—and patients a more accurate diagnosis earlier (when interventions are most successful).

In partnership with the Global Lyme Alliance and Lyme specialist, Dr. Crystal Barnwell, MD, we are working rapidly with internal agency technologists and creatives to bring the tool to Apple and Google stores by late 2022.

Although we plan to pilot the project in New York City first, we hope for it to spread to all major cities where Lyme disease is unknowingly on the rise.

The Lyme Bomb Detector tool will do something that has not been done before—and that is to level the playing field in Lyme disease identification and, ultimately, diagnosis for dark-skinned people.

The app is a must-have for everyone with Black or Brown skin. It gives physicians a sharper eye—and hopefully, therefore, patients a more accurate diagnosis earlier (when interventions are most successful).

The goal is to start fighting Lyme disease for people of color by going live on Apple and Google app stores by late 2022.