A cross-sectional study of social inequities in medical crowdfunding campaigns in the United States.

ABSTRACT: Americans are increasingly relying on crowdfunding to pay for the costs of healthcare. In medical crowdfunding (MCF), online platforms allow individuals to appeal to social networks to request donations for health and medical needs. Users are often told that success depends on how they organize and share their campaigns to increase social network engagement. However, experts have cautioned that MCF could exacerbate health and social disparities by amplifying the choices (and biases) of the crowd and leveraging these to determine who has access to financial support for healthcare. To date, research on potential axes of disparity in MCF, and their impacts on fundraising outcomes, has been limited. To answer these questions, this paper presents an exploratory cross-sectional study of a random

SUBMITTER: Kenworthy N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7058302 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature