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Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Cancer

Date Submitted: Aug 20, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: Aug 20, 2023 - Oct 15, 2023
Date Accepted: Jul 4, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Crowdfunding for Complementary and Alternative Cancer Treatments in Tijuana, Mexico: Content Analysis

Snyder J, Zenone M, Grewal A, Caulfield T

Crowdfunding for Complementary and Alternative Cancer Treatments in Tijuana, Mexico: Content Analysis

JMIR Cancer 2024;10:e52018

DOI: 10.2196/52018

PMID: 39141902

PMCID: 11358648

Crowdfunding for Complementary and Alternative Cancer Treatments in Tijuana Mexico

  • Jeremy Snyder; 
  • Marco Zenone; 
  • Ashmita Grewal; 
  • Timothy Caulfield

ABSTRACT

Background:

Complementary and alternative (CAM) cancer treatment is often expensive and not covered by insurance. As a result, many people turn to crowdfunding to access this treatment.

Objective:

The aim of this study is to identify the rationales of cancer patients seeking CAM treatment abroad by looking specifically at crowdfunding campaigns to support CAM cancer treatment in Tijuana, Mexico.

Methods:

We scraped the GoFundMe.com and GiveSendGo.com crowdfunding platforms for campaigns referencing CAM cancer clinics in Tijuana, initiated between Jan-1-2022 to Feb-28-2023. The authors created a coding framework to identify rationales for seeking CAM treatment in Tijuana. To supplement campaign metadata, we coded the beneficiary’s cancer stage, type, age, specific treatment sought, whether the beneficiary died, gender, and race.

Results:

Patients sought CAM cancer treatment in Tijuana because the 1) treatment offers the greatest efficacy (29.9%); 2) treatment offered domestically was not curative (23.2%); 3) clinic treats the whole person, and/or addresses the spiritual dimension of the person (20.1%); 4) treatments are non-toxic, natural, or less invasive (18.2%); and 5) clinic offers the newest technology (8.5%). Campaigns raised $5,275,268.37 and most campaigns beneficiaries were women (69.7%) or White (71.1%).

Conclusions:

These campaigns spread problematic misinformation about the likely efficacy of CAM treatments, funnel money and endorsements to CAM clinics in Tijuana, and leave many campaigners short of the money needed to pay for CAM treatments while costing beneficiaries and their loved one’s time, privacy, and dignity. This study affirms that Tijuana, Mexico is a very popular destination for CAM cancer treatment. Clinical Trial: N/A


 Citation

Please cite as:

Snyder J, Zenone M, Grewal A, Caulfield T

Crowdfunding for Complementary and Alternative Cancer Treatments in Tijuana, Mexico: Content Analysis

JMIR Cancer 2024;10:e52018

DOI: 10.2196/52018

PMID: 39141902

PMCID: 11358648

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© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.