Most people associate ticks, tick bites, and Lyme disease with rural areas like wooded trails, forests, and farms.

But black-legged ticks are invading our urban communities. In fact, people have the same risk of getting Lyme disease in a city park as they do in rural locations.

Right now, ticking Lyme bombs are detonating in cities and many inhabitants are totally unaware. Once detonated, Lyme bombs bring lasting devastation like arthritis, nervous system problems, brain fog, severe headaches, heart issues, and more.

Unfortunately, tick bite rashes are difficult to spot. And infinitely more difficult to spot on darker skin tones.

So we asked ourselves: How can we improve recognition of Lyme rashes and, ultimately, diagnosis rates for those whose darker skin tones make spotting rashes difficult for the naked eye?

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.

The greatest power of the Lyme Bomb Detector is that it can help patients attain a more accurate Lyme disease diagnosis earlier (when interventions are most successful). Additionally, it can help physicians overcome their own biases by letting a computer algorithm contrast and evaluate the skin, giving physicians a sharper eye.

The execution is driven by accessibility, simplicity, and an art directional tone designed to appeal to an urban consumer audience. Street art with a touch of graphic novel drove the art directional choices. We aimed to create an effective medical tool that didn't feel anything like a medical tool.

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.