If you're reading this, chronic illness has probably impacted you or someone close to you. At every doctor's appointment, you may hear the same story on repeat: they can't explain your specific symptoms, why your tests might be coming back normal or inconclusive, or why the treatment isn't working. Your reality remains unheard or invalidated, and you often feel invisible.

Chronic illness affects everyone differently, but the truth is that clinical research doesn't always accurately reflect this. Clinical trials consistently under-represent or exclude certain groups like women, ethnic minorities, older adults, and people living with disabilities. As a result, these patients are left without the help and support they deserve.

We want to change that, by giving you the opportunity to show researchers your reality, and to make it count towards the future of medical research for chronic illness.

Research matching on Human

It's clear the chronic illness community is looking for answers, with 300,000+ people turning to Human to understand their health. Now we want to extend the opportunity to use your tracked health data to drive change for good, and contribute towards finding the answers you've been looking for.

You can now opt-in to be matched with relevant research studies, including scientific, clinical and market research. Your health journey can provide real-world evidence for studies focused on furthering knowledge about conditions, symptoms, and treatments specific to you.

Participating in research through Human is completely voluntary. We won't share any of your identifiable data with research partners without your explicit consent. Opting in lets us match you with relevant studies, but you choose whether to join each one. You're always in control.

Our research areas

We're currently focusing on six primary research areas:

• Mental health: depression, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar
• Neurological & neurodevelopmental: ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), migraine, epilepsy
• Women's health: endometriosis, PMOS (formerly PCOS), PMDD, menopause
• Inflammatory & autoimmune: IBD, celiac disease, lupus
• Pain & fatigue: chronic pain, fibromyalgia, POTS, ME/CFS
• Respiratory & metabolic: asthma, COPD, diabetes, obesity

How to get started

If you're ready to take the next steps towards equitable and personalized medicine with us, here's how you can get involved:

1. Download the Human app and set up your profile, adding any health conditions, symptoms you want to track, and treatments you currently take
2. Consent to research participation when prompted. You can review or update your choice anytime in Privacy & Consent within Settings.
3. Keep tracking your health. Logging health events creates data for future research, and helps us match you to more relevant studies.

Why participate?

Taking part can be as simple as completing a survey, tracking a specific health event, or just continuing to log your health the way you already do. That record becomes something researchers can learn from. Chronic conditions can often be under-studied precisely because this kind of consistent, real-world data is hard to come by.

Often, you'll get something back from participating: how your own health data is shifting, where you sit alongside others tracking the same thing, what a study actually found.

And your experience doesn't just sit in a database. The studies are shaped around what people living with the condition deal with, so the more people like you take part, the better the research gets at asking the right questions. That's how the picture improves for everyone who comes after you.

You're in control

Participation in research studies through Human is opt-in. That means you have to make the choice to switch research matching on, and you'll get information about each study and what it involves before you consent to participate.  

You can switch research matching off at any time. Every data point is encrypted, and our systems and processes are GDPR-compliant and HIPAA-aligned. Your privacy is our priority, and we will never share your identifiable data without your consent.

The future of personalized medicine

We built Human because we've been where you are; unseen, unheard, and hoping for a better tomorrow.

A future that prioritizes diverse voices in chronic illness can exist, but we can't create it without you. Opt in to research matching to get real research insights based on your reality, and help us inform a new standard of care for other patients just like you.

The choice is in your hands, and we'll hold them every step of the way 💜

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