Research is crucial to advancing knowledge about the causes, mechanisms, and treatment for uveitis. In all our research now, including our studies relating to uveitis and childhood arthritis, we ensure that parents and patients are represented on our research teams.  We feel it is important for patients and parents to contribute their ideas and perspectives as we develop research projects, interpret results, and disseminate our research results to end-users such as health care providers, administrators, and patients and families. For conditions such as uveitis and childhood arthritis, most of the time, we do not know the cause of the disease, we do not fully understand the mechanisms of the disease, we have treatments that are much improved but still not as predictably effective or as safe as we desire, and we have no insight into cure and prevention.  However, there has been astonishing progress in gaining new knowledge.  Based on that new knowledge, it is likely that uveitis and childhood arthritis occur because of multiple factors, including, as examples, genetics, environment, and lifestyle.

Parents can help by identifying possible factors that they wonder might influence the diseases’ occurrence and courses.  We encourage parents to ask questions, share their thoughts, and participate fully in the process of learning more. Parents should not feel hesitant to ask questions and share their thoughts.  It is also important for parents and patients to share their thoughts about the therapies they receive in terms of their effectiveness and side effects.  As technologies advance, we can now aim to personalize treatment approaches; that is, rather than selecting therapies for groups of children with similar conditions, we are now beginning to individualize treatment choices for individual children based on their unique genetic, environmental, and lifestyle considerations. Parents and the patients themselves will be crucial in helping to make personalized choices for therapy.