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Prior research offers a minimal amount of direct evidence on the effect of gamification features such as top-donor leaderboards on medical crowdfunding, particularly regarding donor engagement, contributions per donor, and total campaign funds. The study analyzes data from 3,415 distinct medical campaigns, leveraging an unannounced change on GoFundMe. The findings reveal a complex scenario that defies simple expectations. The leaderboard is expected to increase donor engagement, but it appears to discourage larger contributions per donor, a phenomenon termed "crowding out." Despite these mixed outcomes, there is a positive correlation between the leaderboard's presence and the funds raised. These findings highlight the potential of leaderboards to increase engagement and total funds raised in medical crowdfunding campaigns. However, the crowding-out effect raises concerns about the Pareto efficiency of this motivation system. This research contributes insights to both practitioners and theorists, shedding light on the complex interplay between gamification features and crowdfunding outcomes in the medical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical crowdfunding is growing in popularity in a number of countries, including Canada. In the crowdfunding context people write and share their own stories. This activity also intersects with conventional news media practices when journalists prepare stories about these campaigns. This intersection raises the question of what are print journalists' responsibilities towards covering human interest stories based on medical crowdfunding campaigns? In this qualitative analysis we explore this question through reporting on interviews conducted with 14 Canadian news media professionals. After transcript review, emergent themes were compared and contrasted across investigators to reach confirmation on the scope and scale of emergent themes. These themes were then contrasted against the existing literature and our research goals to aid in interpreting their significance. Thematic analysis of the interviews identified three key domains of responsibility for journalists, which are: to the story, to the campaign and campaigner, and to their profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Turkiye Klinikleri Journal of Medical Ethics-Law & History / Türkiye klinikleri tıp Etiği, Hukuku ve Tarihi Dergisi is the property of Turkiye Klinikleri and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We examine how social influence interacts with other information sources to affect user behaviors in the context of medical crowdfunding. We conduct a large-scale randomized field experiment on a leading medical crowdfunding platform, showing friends' donation information to donors in the treatment group and not showing such information in the control group, and examine how the likelihood to donate differs. In addition, we conduct a survey on Amazon Mechanical Turk to evaluate the informational value of different case attributes in conveying the patients' need for help to donors. We find that for cases containing attributes with high informational value (e.g., minor patient, severe conditions), social influence is insignificant. In contrast, for cases lacking attributes with high informational value, social influence significantly increases donors' likelihood to donate. Overall, our results show that the impact of social influence depends on the informational value of other information sources, suggesting that the social influence in our context is primarily informational. Our findings indicate that rather than generating an entrenchment effect, where cases with attributes of high informational value attract disproportionate benefits, social influence can increase donation likelihood to cases that lack such attributes, promoting more equal access to resources overall. History: Olivia Liu Sheng, Senior Editor; Yuliang (Oliver) Yao, Associate Editor. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1189. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online medical crowdfunding has gained popularity in recent years in China. The objective of this study was to identify unmet medical needs in the public healthcare system through analysis of Chinese medical crowdfunding data. Text information extraction and statistical analysis based on large-scale data. From 19 June 2011 to 15 March 2020, data from 30,704 medical crowdfunding projects were collected from Tencent GongYi, which is one of the largest Chinese medical crowdfunding platforms. Text mining methods were used to extract data on the medical conditions and locations of the applicants of medical crowdfunding. In addition, 125 medical crowdfunding projects initiated by leukaemia patients in Chongqing and Nanyang were further investigated through manual data extraction, and the factors impacting the fundraising goals were explored using a generalised linear model. The most common conditions using medical crowdfunding to raise funds were as follows: cancer (31.87%), chronic conditions (18.14%), accidental injury (7.80%) and blood system–related conditions (7.75%). Treatments for cancer and blood system–related conditions are expensive and have serious long-term impacts on the lives of patients. Results showed that the cities of Nanyang and Chongqing had the largest number of crowdfunding projects. This study found that the medical conditions that prompted individuals to apply for crowdfunding were those with long treatment cycles, complexities and expensive medical or non-medical costs. Furthermore, discrepancies in health insurance policies between different regions and residents seeking treatments outside their insurance locations were also important factors that triggered medical crowdfunding applications. Adjusting health insurance policies accordingly may improve the efficiency of utilising health insurance resources and reduce the financial burden on patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020, an estimated 8 to 12 million Americans started an online fundraising campaign to cover the cost of healthcare. In this paper, we study the causes and consequences of medical crowdfunding using data from GoFundMe, one of the largest online fundraising platforms. First, we show that the ACA Medicaid expansion had a statistically meaningful effect in reducing the number of health-related GoFundMe campaigns. This suggests that the demand for crowdfunded medical care could be driven, in part, by lack of health insurance coverage. Next, we show that the growth of medical crowdfunding can exacerbate group-level inequality by reinforcing existing disparities in health access. Specifically, we document that GoFundMe campaigns organized by individuals with distinctively African-American or Hispanic surnames and first-names are significantly less likely to meet their fundraising target and raise less funds overall than those organized by individuals with neutral or distinctively White names. We conclude by investigating the channels underlying these racial disparities in crowdfunding success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceived trust is a key factor affecting the behavior to donate online. In order to further explore the factors and influencing mechanisms that affect the success of medical crowdfunding projects, this paper, combined with the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory, introduces the mediating variable of social presence and perceived differences in trust, and constructs a model of online users’ donation behavior to medical crowdfunding projects. We collected 437 valid samples through a questionnaire survey, and processed the data with SPSS and Amos software to test and analyze the theoretical model. The research results showed that project description and user participation have a significant positive effect on social presence; project transparency and patient identity have a significant negative effect on perceived differences in trust; social presence has a positive effect on donation behavior, while the perceived difference in trust has a negative effect; social presence and perceived differences in trust play a mediating role respectively; there is no significant effect of patient status on social presence. This study further expands the application of social presence and perceived differences in trust in medical crowdfunding, and provides a theoretical basis for the success of medical crowdfunding projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This purpose of this study is to develop a research model by extending the theory of planned behavior in a new application context and apply it to investigate the extrinsic factors influencing people's attitudes towards donating to medical crowdfunding projects appearing on mobile social networking sites (MSNS) and their intention to donate. A survey of 356 Chinese users was conducted and structural equation modeling was used to validate the proposed model and hypotheses. The results indicate that project information, retweeter information, and MSNS information all have a significant effect on the general attitude towards donating to medical crowdfunding projects, and general attitude positively affects people's donation intention. In addition, perceived behavioral control also has a positive effect on people's donation intention, while experienced donating to medical crowdfunding projects has a negative effect on people's donation intention. The research findings provide important theoretical and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdfunding is becoming a popular way of financing healthcare. Some commentators suggest that crowdfunding could serve as a new institution that fills gaps in conventional safety nets. Others suggest that crowdfunding is simply another way of obtaining help from family, friends, and local associations, and has little transformative potential. We provide one of the first quantitative analyses of medical crowdfunding, and the first to model the broader societal context in which campaigns are situated. We scraped data on US medical campaigns from the leading platform and combined them with county-level socioeconomic data, to model predictors of campaign frequency and success. Our findings suggest that many seek help from crowdfunding when both formal and informal conventional safety nets fail them. Significantly more campaigns are initiated in US counties with poorer private insurance coverage, lower social security provision, fewer social associations, and weaker cultures of giving. However, few campaigns reach their goals where most needed. More successful campaigns are found in counties that are wealthier and healthier and have more social associations. Crowdfunding is not merely 'friendfunding': fundraisers can increase their chances of success by having their appeals widely shared on social media. However, the returns to sharing are greater for campaigns initiated in wealthier areas. Overall, our findings suggest that medical crowdfunding is an entrepreneurial safety net: one where protection is not afforded universally or on the basis of need, but on the basis of one's ability to appeal to the audience and out-compete rivalling needfuls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The utilization of linguistic style in crowdfunding appeals is crucial for the success of crowdfunding activities. While existing research predominantly focuses on linguistic styles in reward-based crowdfunding, this study addresses a notable gap by examining the impact of message concreteness on donation intentions within the context of medical crowdfunding. Through a between-group experiment, the study reveals that the level of message concreteness in charitable appeals of medical crowdfunding projects (abstract or concrete) elicits distinct moral emotions (pride and guilt), subsequently influencing donation intentions. Moreover, the study identifies interactions between social distance, disease acuteness, and message concreteness in relation to donation intentions. By elucidating the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of how message concreteness affects donation intentions, the study not only contributes to the evolving literature on medical crowdfunding but also responds to scholars' calls for investigating the effects of linguistic styles in diverse contexts. Additionally, it extends the application of construal level theory. The conclusions drawn provide valuable insights for crowdfunding platform managers and project initiators, aiding them in optimizing language expressions to more effectively achieve donation goals. • This study enhances current theory by revealing how linguistic styles affect donation intentions via moral emotions. • Abstract language increases donation intentions through pride, while concrete language does so through guilt. • Linguistic style is more effective when disease acuteness and social distance align with construct levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Medical crowdfunding provides opportunities for individuals who lack financial resources to access the health services that they need. Despite the popularity of medical crowdfunding, the current understanding of the success of medical crowdfunding campaigns is fragmented and inadequate. Objective: We aimed to comprehensively investigate which factors lead to the success of medical crowdfunding campaigns. Methods: A search was conducted in PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science, ACM Digital Library, and ScienceDirect from 2010 to June 2020. Papers directly and indirectly related to the success of medical crowdfunding campaigns were included. Two reviewers independently extracted information on the success of medical crowdfunding campaigns. Results: Our search yielded 441 articles, of which 13 met the inclusion criteria. Medical crowdfunding is increasingly attracting academic attention, and most studies leverage text analysis as their research methods; however, there is a lack of consensus on the definition of medical crowdfunding among researchers. Four categories of factors that affect the success of medical crowdfunding were identified: platforms, raisers, donors, and campaigns. Conclusions: Although some limitations exist in our systematic review, our study captured and mapped literatures of the success of medical crowdfunding campaigns systematically, which can be used as the basis for future research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online crowdfunding has emerged as an increasingly popular tool to raise funds for medical treatment. Medical Crowdfunding campaigns can use language tools to attract donor. The persuasiveness of language is an important factor affecting the subjective judgment of donors. Different styles of verbal persuasion will change donors' perception of patients' conditions, thus affecting their willingness to donate. Construct a corpus of persuasive styles with the help of text mining methods, and according to Aristotle's theory of persuasion, the characteristics of rational appeal, emotional appeal and credibility appeal are constructed. Finally, establish an econometric model of the influence of language persuasion style on project financing. Results from the econometric analysis using 29700 campaigns benefiting critical patient reveal that both credibility and emotional have positive effects on donations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of Internet financing, more and more people suffering from serious illnesses are choosing to seek help from the community through major illness fundraising platforms to tide over their difficulties. Previous research has demonstrated the importance of message framing for funding projects. Current research focuses on the content of the charitable appeals, yet missing from this body of research is evidence on how the style of language factors into crowdfunding success. This study was designed as an experiment and analyzed using SPSS24.0 and AMOSS22.0 to explore how different linguistic styles of charitable appeals ultimately influence potential donors' willingness to give by eliciting different moral emotions from them. The results indicate that both pride and guilt positively influence the willingness to donate. Concrete language styles are beneficial in stimulating guilt, while abstract language styles are more likely to stimulate pride. The findings of this dissertation not only help to add to literature related to the field of medical crowdfunding, but also help to guide project sponsors to effectively write appeal content to obtain more fundraising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years,the emergence of mobile internet-based crowdfunding has provided a new way for the poor to obtain emergency relieves for medical needs. Despite a number of reported scams,medical crowdfunding as a wholes has made an important social contribution to the society. Public opinions and sentiment highlight two practical issues:Are the resources being directed to the people who need the most?And how can we optimize the crowdfunding?To tackle these questions,we focus on the issue of how the socioeconomic status of help seekers affect their internet fundraising outcomes. We ask three research questions:What is the correlation between the socio-economic status of help seekers and their crowdfunding effectiveness? What are the underlying mechanisms for success? Is there a possible optimization path for crowdfunding? Our data is based on the 1930 fundraising cases from a large medical crowdfunding platform in China. The study finds significant differences in effectiveness among different socioeconomic status groups. Higher SES status correlate with higher donation figures,fundraising target completions,a larger number of donations received and more cross-social media platform reposting. This socio-economic gradient phenomenon contradicts the social expectation of prioritizing help to the most needed in medical crowdfunding.The analysis of mediation effect also shows that the offline interpersonal network plays an important intermediary role. While good case narratives are helpful but they are not the intermediary mechanism that links the family’s socio-economic status and crowdfunding effect. Further analysis also finds that when fundraising begins with We Chat friends circles and then moves to public platforms,the impact of socioeconomic gradient seems to reduce its significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background In recent years, crowdfunding for medical expenses has gained popularity, especially in countries without universal health coverage. Nevertheless, universal coverage does not imply covering all medical costs for everyone. In countries with universal coverage unmet health care needs typically emerge due to financial reasons: the inability to pay the patient co-payments, and additional and experimental therapies not financed by the health insurance fund. This study aims at mapping unmet health care needs manifested in medical crowdfunding campaigns in a country with universal health coverage. Methods In this exploratory study we assess unmet health care needs in Germany by investigating 380 medical crowdfunding campaigns launched on Leetchi.com . We combine manual data extraction with text mining tools to identify the most common conditions, diseases and disorders which prompted individuals to launch medical crowdfunding campaigns in Germany. We also assess the type and size of health-related expenses that individuals aim to finance from donations. Results We find that several conditions frequently listed in crowdfunding campaigns overlap with the most disabling conditions: cancer, mental disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and neurological disorders. Nevertheless, there is no strong association between the disease burden and the condition which prompted individuals to ask for donations. Although oral health, lipoedema, and genetic disorders and rare diseases are not listed among leading causes of disability worldwide, these conditions frequently prompted individuals to turn to crowdfunding. Unmet needs are the highest for various therapies not financed by the health insurance fund; additional, complementary, and animal-assisted therapies are high on the wish list. Numerous people sought funds to cover the cost of scientifically poorly supported or unsupported therapies. In line with the social drift hypothesis, disability and bad health status being associated with poor socioeconomic status, affected individuals frequently collected donations for their living expenses. Conclusions In universal healthcare systems, medical crowdfunding is a viable option to finance alternative, complementary, experimental and scientifically poorly supported therapies not financed by the health insurance fund. Further analysis of the most common diseases and disorders listed in crowdfunding campaigns might provide guidance for national health insurance funds in extending their list of funded medical interventions. The fact of numerous individuals launching crowdfunding campaigns with the same diseases and disorders signals high unmet needs for available but not yet financed treatment. One prominent example of such treatment is liposuction for patients suffering from lipoedema; these treatments were frequently listed in crowdfunding campaigns and might soon be available for patients at the expense of statutory health insurance in Germany.

Abstract Background Social media has globalised compassion enabling requests for donations to spread beyond geographical boundaries. The use of social media for medical crowdfunding links people with unmet healthcare needs to charitable donors. There is no doubt that fundraising campaigns using such platforms facilitates access to financial resources to the benefit of patients and their caregivers. Main text This paper reports on a critical review of the published literature and information from other online resources discussing medical crowdfunding and the related ethical questions. The review highlighted the benefits of crowdfunding as well as the under-exploration of the risk of having patients’ desires and human rights undermined during online fundraising campaigns. Majority of these campaigns get initiated on behalf of the patients, especially the very sick and dependant. The ethical questions raised relate to the voluntariness of informed consent and the possibility of patients being used as a means to an end. Vulnerability of patients may expose them to coercion, undue influence, manipulation, and violation of their human rights. The success of these campaigns is influenced by the digital skills, pre-existing social networks and, the emotional potency. Healthcare is a public good, and online market forces should not determine access to essential health services. The benefits of crowdfunding cannot be subverted, but it can perpetuate unintended injustices, especially those arising from socio-economic factors. Conclusions Policymakers ought to monitor the utilisation of crowdfunding sites to identify policy failures and unmet essential health care needs responsible for driving individuals to use these platforms. The upholding of human rights and the fundamental respect of the individual’s wishes is a moral imperative. The need for an ethics framework to guide different stakeholders during medical crowdfunding needs further examination.

Lyme disease remains a contested illness in Canada, thereby making the diagnostic and treatment journeys difficult for some people. One outcome of this is that increasing numbers of people are turning to medical crowdfunding to support access to alternative therapies, non-local health care providers and assist with managing the costs of everyday life. In this analysis, we qualitatively explore the narratives shared in Canadians' crowdfunding campaigns to support Lyme disease treatment or diagnosis to identify whether or not any common elements shared in these narratives exist, and if so, what they are. We identified 238 campaigns for inclusion from three prominent crowdfunding platforms. Thematic analysis of the campaign narratives shows four consistent themes shared in these campaigns: what is lost (e.g. bodily ability), what is missing (e.g. local care options), what is sought (e.g. funds to cover treatment abroad) and what is hoped for (e.g. return to wellbeing). These themes demonstrate the highly personal and emotional nature of medical crowdfunding, particularly in the context of a contested illness that may lead some to question the legitimacy of one's financial need. This analysis contributes valuable new insights to the nascent scholarship on medical crowdfunding, and particularly to our understanding of how people communicate about their health and bodily needs on this public platform. It also identifies important directions for future research, including the potential for crowdfunding narratives to be used for advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical crowdfunding platform helps numerous patients access enthusiastic donors and address financial difficulties, but many crowdfunding projects fail to reach their target amount. Thus, how a crowdfunding project can attract considerable donors is questionable. This study examines the effects of attention and reliability on the performance of online medical crowdfunding projects and how target amount changes such effects. Based on objective data of 1177 crowdfunding projects from 2016 to January 2018 in a large medical crowdfunding platform in China, we find that the project donor’s attention (the number of forwards and comments) and reliability (the number of dynamic updates, empirical users, and pictures) positively affect the medical crowdfunding performance of the projects. However, target amount weakens the positive effects of the number of forwards and comments in online medical crowdfunding projects. Therefore, project sponsors should set reasonable target fundraising amounts while showing attention and reliability to donors. Compared with previous research that mainly explores the influence of external factors on crowdfunding outcomes from the perspective of donors, this paper focuses on the internal project factors and explores the concerns and trustworthiness of crowdfunding projects, enriching the literature related to fundraising ability in the project.

Abstract Background Medical crowdfunding is the process of using a crowdfunding platform to raise funds for medical treatment and associated expenses, such as missing work or transportation costs to access care. This type of crowdfunding has become increasingly popular, and is an effective tool to raise financing for medical treatment in the absence of insurance. However, it is accompanied by questions of which diseases or treatments are viewed as worthy to fund and which do not fit the criteria of worthiness. In the context of an abortion, a legitimate and important medical procedure, there is a lack of research that determines if campaigners can successfully utilize GoFundMe to pay for abortions and abortion related services and costs given the social stigma around this procedure. Here, we explore the outcomes of crowdfunding campaigns for stigmatized needs and conditions by examining campaigns related to abortion. Methods A total of 211 campaigns that utilized the term “abortion” were retrieved on the medical-section of the GoFundMe crowdfunding platform. These results were thematically analyzed by each author and two distinctive categories were identified to group the campaigns. Results The categories of campaigns using the term “abortion” were: campaigns seeking funds to access abortion related services (n = 84) and campaigns using the choice not to terminate pregnancy or the harms of abortion as a reason to give (n = 127). The number of donors, number of Facebook shares, campaign location, funding requested, funding pledged, campaign creation date, relation between the recipient and campaigner, and proposed use for the funds were recorded for each included campaign. Conclusions This study suggests that certain conditions or diseases may be less successful in medical crowdfunding based on perceived features of worthiness, such as in the case of abortion. In the categories we identified, campaigns seeking funds to access abortion-related services were less successful than campaigns using choosing not to terminate a pregnancy or the harms of abortion as a reason to give. This is an area of concern in medical crowdfunding – that certain medical needs will not be funded equitably.

Abstract Background The use of crowdfunding platforms to cover the costs of healthcare is growing rapidly within low-, middle-, and high-income countries as a new funding modality in global health. The popularity of such “medical crowdfunding” is fueled by health disparities and gaps in health coverage and social safety-net systems. Crowdfunding in its current manifestations can be seen as an antithesis to universal health coverage. But research on medical crowdfunding, particularly in global health contexts, has been sparse, and accessing robust data is difficult. To map and document how medical crowdfunding is shaped by, and shapes, health disparities, this article offers an exploratory conceptual and empirical analysis of medical crowdfunding platforms and practices around the world. Data are drawn from a mixed-methods analysis of medical crowdfunding campaigns, as well as an ongoing ethnographic study of crowdfunding platforms and the people who use them. Results Drawing on empirical data and case examples, this article describes three main ways that crowdfunding is impacting health equity and health politics around the world: 1) as a technological determinant of health, wherein data ownership, algorithms and platform politics influence health inequities; 2) as a commercial determinant of health, wherein corporate influence reshapes healthcare markets and health data; 3) and as a determinant of health politics, affecting how citizens view health rights and the future of health coverage. Conclusions Rather than viewing crowdfunding as a social media fad or a purely beneficial technology, researchers and publics must recognize it as a complex innovation that is reshaping health systems, influencing health disparities, and shifting political norms, even as it introduces new ways of connecting and caring for those in the midst of health crises. More analysis, and better access to data, is needed to inform policy and address crowdfunding as a source of health disparities.

Cancer patients and survivors in the United States are increasingly likely to use online crowdfunding as a means of offsetting the expenses associated with their medical care. This practice of making an online appeal for support to a broad public audience constitutes an inadvertent form of informal emotional labor for its practitioners-labor in which striking the right affective notes in one's appeal is believed to be critical to fundraising outcomes. Drawing on ethnographic interviews, we suggest that crowdfunding produces an array of complex, often contradictory sentiments and narrative incentives for cancer patients and survivors-ultimately transforming the experience of serious illness., (© 2024 American Anthropological Association.)

Medical crowdfunding is a key source of financing for individuals facing high out-of-pocket costs, including organ-transplant candidates. However, little is known about racial disparities in campaigning activity and outcomes, or how these relate to access to care. In this exploratory, nationwide, cross-sectional study, we examined racial disparities in campaigning activity across states and the association between US campaigners' race and ethnicity and crowdfunding outcomes using a novel database of organ-transplant-related campaigns, and an algorithm to identify race and ethnicity based on name and geographic location. This analysis suggests that there are racial disparities in individuals' ability to successfully raise requested funds, with Black and Hispanic campaigners fundraising lower amounts and less likely to achieve their monetary goals. We also found that crowdfunding among White, Black, and Hispanic populations exhibits different patterns of activity at the state level, and in relation to race-specific uninsurance and waitlist additions, highlighting potential differences in fundraising need across the 3 groups. Policy efforts should consider not only how inequalities in fundraising ability for associated costs influence accessibility to care but also how to identify clinical need among minorities., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest Please see ICMJE form(s) for author conflicts of interest. These have been provided as supplementary materials., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Project HOPE - The People-To-People Health Foundation, Inc.)

Background: In recent years, crowdfunding for medical expenses has gained popularity, especially in countries without universal health coverage. Nevertheless, universal coverage does not imply covering all medical costs for everyone. In countries with universal coverage unmet health care needs typically emerge due to financial reasons: the inability to pay the patient co-payments, and additional and experimental therapies not financed by the health insurance fund. This study aims at mapping unmet health care needs manifested in medical crowdfunding campaigns in a country with universal health coverage.Methods: In this exploratory study we assess unmet health care needs in Germany by investigating 380 medical crowdfunding campaigns launched on Leetchi.com . We combine manual data extraction with text mining tools to identify the most common conditions, diseases and disorders which prompted individuals to launch medical crowdfunding campaigns in Germany. We also assess the type and size of health-related expenses that individuals aim to finance from donations.Results: We find that several conditions frequently listed in crowdfunding campaigns overlap with the most disabling conditions: cancer, mental disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and neurological disorders. Nevertheless, there is no strong association between the disease burden and the condition which prompted individuals to ask for donations. Although oral health, lipoedema, and genetic disorders and rare diseases are not listed among leading causes of disability worldwide, these conditions frequently prompted individuals to turn to crowdfunding. Unmet needs are the highest for various therapies not financed by the health insurance fund; additional, complementary, and animal-assisted therapies are high on the wish list. Numerous people sought funds to cover the cost of scientifically poorly supported or unsupported therapies. In line with the social drift hypothesis, disability and bad health status being associated with poor socioeconomic status, affected individuals frequently collected donations for their living expenses.Conclusions: In universal healthcare systems, medical crowdfunding is a viable option to finance alternative, complementary, experimental and scientifically poorly supported therapies not financed by the health insurance fund. Further analysis of the most common diseases and disorders listed in crowdfunding campaigns might provide guidance for national health insurance funds in extending their list of funded medical interventions. The fact of numerous individuals launching crowdfunding campaigns with the same diseases and disorders signals high unmet needs for available but not yet financed treatment. One prominent example of such treatment is liposuction for patients suffering from lipoedema; these treatments were frequently listed in crowdfunding campaigns and might soon be available for patients at the expense of statutory health insurance in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Medical crowdfunding is the process of using a crowdfunding platform to raise funds for medical treatment and associated expenses, such as missing work or transportation costs to access care. This type of crowdfunding has become increasingly popular, and is an effective tool to raise financing for medical treatment in the absence of insurance. However, it is accompanied by questions of which diseases or treatments are viewed as worthy to fund and which do not fit the criteria of worthiness. In the context of an abortion, a legitimate and important medical procedure, there is a lack of research that determines if campaigners can successfully utilize GoFundMe to pay for abortions and abortion related services and costs given the social stigma around this procedure. Here, we explore the outcomes of crowdfunding campaigns for stigmatized needs and conditions by examining campaigns related to abortion.Methods: A total of 211 campaigns that utilized the term "abortion" were retrieved on the medical-section of the GoFundMe crowdfunding platform. These results were thematically analyzed by each author and two distinctive categories were identified to group the campaigns.Results: The categories of campaigns using the term "abortion" were: campaigns seeking funds to access abortion related services (n = 84) and campaigns using the choice not to terminate pregnancy or the harms of abortion as a reason to give (n = 127). The number of donors, number of Facebook shares, campaign location, funding requested, funding pledged, campaign creation date, relation between the recipient and campaigner, and proposed use for the funds were recorded for each included campaign.Conclusions: This study suggests that certain conditions or diseases may be less successful in medical crowdfunding based on perceived features of worthiness, such as in the case of abortion. In the categories we identified, campaigns seeking funds to access abortion-related services were less successful than campaigns using choosing not to terminate a pregnancy or the harms of abortion as a reason to give. This is an area of concern in medical crowdfunding - that certain medical needs will not be funded equitably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Persons diagnosed with serious chronic illnesses and their caretakers experience multiple types of financial costs that strain their income and generate financial distress. Many turn to medical crowdfunding (MCF) to mitigate the harms of these costs on their health and quality of life., Objective: This scoping review aims to summarize the research on MCF for persons diagnosed with serious chronic illness regarding study designs and methods; the responsible conduct of research practices; and study foci as they relate to stress, stress appraisals, and the coping processes., Methods: This review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) and PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines. Eligible studies were conducted in countries designated as high income by the World Bank and focused on beneficiaries diagnosed with serious chronic illness. The findings of the included studies were summarized as they related to the key concepts in a conceptual framework derived from an established stress, appraisal, and coping framework and a conceptual model of financial toxicity in pediatric oncology., Results: Overall, 26 studies were eligible for inclusion in the review. The main findings included a lack of integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches and the inconsistent reporting of the responsible conduct of research practices. The included studies focused on financial stressors that contributed to financial burden, such as out-of-pocket payments of medical bills, basic living expenses, medical travel expenses, and lost income owing to illness-related work disruptions. Few studies addressed stress appraisals as threatening or the adequacy of available financial resources. When mentioned, appraisals related to the global financial struggle during the COVID-19 pandemic or the capacity of social network members to donate funds. The consequences of MCF included the receipt of 3 forms of social support (tangible, informational, and emotional), privacy loss, embarrassment, and the propagation of scientifically unsupported information. Studies found that friends and family tended to manage MCF campaigns. Although most of the studies (21/26, 81%) focused on monetary outcomes, a few (5/26, 19%) concentrated on peoples' experiences with MCF., Conclusions: The identified methodological gaps highlight the need for more robust and reproducible approaches to using the copious data available on public MCF platforms. The integration of quantitative and qualitative methods will allow for nuanced explorations of the MCF experience. A more consistent elaboration of strategies to promote the responsible conduct of research is warranted to minimize risk to populations that are vulnerable and express concerns regarding the loss of privacy. Finally, an examination of the unanticipated consequences of MCF is critical for the development of future interventions to optimize existing supports while providing needed supports, financial and nonfinancial, that are lacking., (©Mary Killela, Caitlin Biddell, Jessica Keim-Malpass, Todd A Schwartz, Sandra Soto, Jessica Williams, Sheila Santacroce. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 04.12.2023.)

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Patients and families are increasingly turning to crowdfunding to help them cover the cost of medical care. The ethics of crowdfunding has garnered some attention in the bioethical literature. In this paper I examine an ethical aspect of medical crowdfunding (MCF) that has received limited attention: the role of donors. I defend a virtue ethical approach to analyzing the role of donors in MCF. Vicious donation, where donors do not exercise the relevant virtues, can compound some of the ethical risks associated with MCF, as seen in the several recent, high‐profile cases. My primary contention in this paper is that encouraging donors to think about how donating to a particular campaign would measure against the virtues I outline could help to discourage acts of ethically problematic donation to MCF campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a response to the shortcomings of the U.S. healthcare system, Americans are increasingly turning to crowdfunding platforms to bankroll their health-related costs. However, although medical crowdfunding has rapidly become institutionalized as part of the U.S. healthcare financing landscape, empirical evidence on how Americans perceive its role in healthcare and the impact it might have on public attitudes is scarce. To shed more light on the above, we analyze data from one correlational and one experimental study conducted over September–November 2021. Our correlational study reveals that political orientation is associated with Americans' views on medical crowdfunding. Specifically, we find that those who self-identified as conservative perceived medical crowdfunding as a valid part of the system, and more positively than a universal healthcare system. In contrast, medical crowdfunding is perceived less positively, as hindering a system of universal and affordable healthcare by those more liberally-oriented. In our experimental study, we explore how medical crowdfunding narratives can induce social attitudes conducive to change. Specifically, we test the effect of politicized narratives (vs. control) on group efficacy and subsequently on collective action intentions for healthcare reform, as a function of political orientation. Our results show that politicized narratives might induce collective action intentions through higher group efficacy, but only among those who self-identified as conservative. Liberally-oriented individuals held high collective action intentions for healthcare reform and were not affected by the manipulation. Our work is the first to establish empirically that medical crowdfunding, when employing politicized narratives, can induce collective action intentions, but this effect is moderated by political ideology. • Medical crowdfunding is perceived positively by conservatively-oriented individuals. • Those who self-identified as liberals perceived medical crowdfunding negatively. • Politicized narratives in MC can induce collective action intentions for healthcare reform. • This effect is moderated by political ideology; only conservatives were affected. • Liberals held high collective action intentions and were not affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: An increasing number of patients and families are utilizing online crowdfunding to support their medical expenses related to organ transplantation. The factors influencing the success of crowdfunding campaigns are poorly understood. Crowdfunding campaigns were abstracted from a popular crowdfunding web site. Campaigns were included if they were actively accepting donations to fund medical expenses related to transplantation of selected organs. The primary outcome measure was total amount raised among successful campaigns receiving at least one donation. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed on various campaign characteristics. A total of 850 campaigns were analyzed. Kidney transplant campaigns were most common (40.5%), followed by liver (33.3%), lung (12.2%), heart (11.3%), and multiorgan (2.7%). 69.1% of campaigns received any donation, and among these, the mean amount raised was $3664 (median $1175). The following factors were significantly associated with amount raised: more positive emotional sentiment in the campaign description (+2.6% per AFINN unit, P < .001), longer campaign description length (+2.4% per 100 characters, P = .001), higher goal amount (+0.6% per $1000 of goal amount, P = .004), and third‐person description perspective (+131% vs first person, P < .001). Physicians will likely encounter medical crowdfunding with increasing frequency as it continues to grow in popularity among their patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdfunding involves raising money from large groups of individuals, often through the use of websites dedicated to this purpose. Crowdfunding campaigns aimed at raising money to pay for expenses related to receiving medical treatment are receiving increased media attention and there is evidence that medical crowdfunding websites are heavily used. Nonetheless, virtually no scholarly attention has been paid to these medical crowdfunding campaigns and there is no systematic evidence about how widely they are used and for what reasons, and what effects they have on the provision of medical care and individuals' relationships to their health systems. Ethical concerns have been raised in relation to these campaigns, focusing on issues for campaigners and donors such as exposure to fraudulent campaigns, loss of privacy, and fairness in how medical crowdfunding funds are distributed. Medical crowdfunding websites themselves have not been systematically studied, despite their significant influence on how these campaigns are developed and promoted. In this paper, we identify three very broad and pressing ethical questions regarding medical crowdfunding for social scientists to address and offer some preliminary insights into key issues informing future answers to each: Who benefits the most from medical crowdfunding and how does medical crowdfunding affect access to medical care; How does medical crowdfunding affect our understanding of the causes of inadequate access to medical care; and How are campaigner and donor privacy affected by website design? Our observations indicate the need for increased scholarly attention to the ethical and practical effects of medical crowdfunding for campaigners, recipients, donors, and the health system as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceived trust is a key factor affecting the behavior to donate online. In order to further explore the factors and influencing mechanisms that affect the success of medical crowdfunding projects, this paper, combined with the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory, introduces the mediating variable of social presence and perceived differences in trust, and constructs a model of online users' donation behavior to medical crowdfunding projects. We collected 437 valid samples through a questionnaire survey, and processed the data with SPSS and Amos software to test and analyze the theoretical model. The research results showed that project description and user participation have a significant positive effect on social presence; project transparency and patient identity have a significant negative effect on perceived differences in trust; social presence has a positive effect on donation behavior, while the perceived difference in trust has a negative effect; social presence and perceived differences in trust play a mediating role respectively; there is no significant effect of patient status on social presence. This study further expands the application of social presence and perceived differences in trust in medical crowdfunding, and provides a theoretical basis for the success of medical crowdfunding projects., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Zhang, Zhang, Jiang, Gao and Yang.)