You don’t have to be an expert to drive progress against your disease.
Failure Is Not an Option: When Patients Become Advocates
Setup
A devastating diagnosis is enough to make anyone despair, but some hardy individuals respond by propelling themselves into action. While many diseases have support groups for exchanging information and referrals, some have also spawned patient-led movements that focus primarily on finding treatments and cures. Determined patients are getting clinical studies funded, using data platforms to share medical records, knitting fragmented research approaches together, and tracking down others with similar diseases to build on shared experiences. What makes someone take science into their own hands? How are patients building movements to accelerate medical progress?
- 2019 Health
Explore More
Health
From the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion rights to public health's role in addressing gun violence to the devastating human toll of the war in Ukraine, this year's Aspen Id...
In America, millions of people struggle with mental health including depression, anxiety, and more — all further exacerbated by living through a pandemic. The National Allianc...
What do Sherlock Holmes and an internist have in common? Meet Lisa Sanders, the doctor reimagining the way medical mysteries are diagnosed. She explains why providers struggl...
The "Great Resignation" has impacted nursing and created a healthcare crisis for us all. What can be done to drive real change and create a supportive work environment where n...
From the "War on Cancer" to the "Cancer Moonshot", extraordinary progress continues to be made in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. Research is driving life-...
In the wake of transformative biopharmaceutical innovation and breakthroughs, Americans need a health care system that ensures these life-saving breakthroughs reach all patien...
A silent epidemic of chronic illnesses, including autoimmune disease, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and long COVID, afflicts tens of millions of Americans. Best-sellin...
Achieving vaccine equity requires authentically communicating with and listening to all communities. As healthcare leaders, we must go where the community is to hear their sto...
Health workers often face grueling working conditions. They regularly confront trauma, work long hours, are exposed to physical danger, and must keep pace with the demands of...
Today's kids are coming of age against a backdrop of political, social, technological, and economic upheaval. While these circumstances are shaping a precocious generation tha...
For people with post-traumatic stress disorder, therapy assisted by the drug MDMA may provide lasting relief, with a new way of seeing their trauma and themselves. Rachel Yehu...
Monkeypox has now been declared a public health emergency in the US and a global emergency by the World Health Organization. What do we know about this virus and the current o...
On a weekly basis, 32 million Americans spend 2 hours at one of 30,000 laundromats across the country. What if that time and space could be used to meet people where they are...