Racial Disparities in Medical Crowdfunding: The Role of Sharing Disparity and Humanizing Narratives

ABSTRACT

Americans have increasingly turned to online crowdfunding to pay for healthcare costs, but our understanding of the inequalities in medical crowdfunding remains limited. This study investigates racial disparities in medical crowdfunding outcomes and examines the role of communication in amplifying, altering, or even reducing the disparities. Using data from 1,127 medical crowdfunding campaigns on GoFundMe, the study found that beneficiaries of color received significantly fewer donations than their White counterparts. The differences in donations between racial groups were partly attributable to sharing disparities. Campaigns for beneficiaries of color were shared less via e-mail or social media than campaigns for White beneficiaries. Campaign narratives with more humanizing details about beneficiaries were associated with more donations. However, humanizing details did not predict more shares, nor were they linked to smaller disparities in campaign outcomes between racial groups. Post-hoc analyses showed that more humanizing details were linked to fewer campaign donations for male beneficiaries of color. The findings contribute to the scholarship addressing the intersections of communication and health inequality on digital platforms.

Acknowledgment

The author thanks three anonymous reviewers for their substantive and thoughtful feedback and Dr. Teri Thompson for her valuable guidance in preparing this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Although the study used publicly available data and did not involve interaction or interventions, I made additional efforts to avoid identifying specific campaigns, following prior research on medical crowdfunding and ethical guidelines on Internet-mediated research. These steps include reporting findings at the aggregate level and refraining from reporting any information that could potentially identify a campaign. When specific examples were necessary, I provided paraphrased accounts and described campaign information within specified ranges.

2. I appreciate an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.