Abstract LB140: Inequity in cancer crowdfunding among LGTBQ+ cancer survivors
Authors: Warner Echo L. , Waters Austin R. , Easterly Caleb , Turner Cindy 
Published: April 2023

Background: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ+) individuals are twice as likely to live in poverty and carry a greater cancer burden than non-LGBTQ+ individuals. Crowdfunding, a type of online fundraising, is increasingly used for cancer-related financial support, but the extent to which LGBTQ+ inequities exist in crowdfunding success has not previously been studied.

Methods: In December 2022, we extracted 494,242 publicly available crowdfunding campaigns from GoFundMe using web-scraping. We then applied two textual dictionaries to categorize the sample for analysis. The first dictionary identified health campaigns that were in English and contained cancer terms (n=196,038). The second dictionary used a list of terms from prior research that were supplemented by an LGBTQ+ study advisory board to stratify the cancer campaigns by LGBTQ+ identity (yes vs. no) of the campaign creator and/or beneficiary. Outliers in the fifth and ninety-fifth percentile for fundraising goal amount were dropped resulting in a final sample of N=179,793 campaigns for analysis. Summary statistics and regression models were calculated using Stata 17 to describe differences in funding goals, amount raised, and number of donors by LGBTQ+ identity, adjusting for year of the campaign and geographic location.

Results: In total, the average campaign goal was $15,891 (Standard Deviation (SD): $13,816), average amount raised was $6,281 (SD: $5,409), and average number of donors was 61 (SD: 47). There were n=1,280 LGBTQ+ cancer campaigns (0.65%). In multivariable models, LGBTQ+ cancer campaigns had goals that were on average $2,009 lower than non-LGBTQ+ cancer campaigns (95% Confidence Interval (CI): -$2,798 - -$1,220, p&lt;0.001), when controlling for year of campaign and geographic location. Similarly, LGBTQ+ cancer campaigns raised $500 less than non-LGBTQ+ cancer campaigns (95% CI -$821 - -$178; p=0.002) when controlling for year of campaign and geographic location. LGBTQ+ campaigns had on average 2.81 more donors than non-LGBTQ+ campaigns (95% CI: 0.05 - 5.56, p=0.046), adjusting for year of campaign and geographic location.

Conclusions: When controlling for year of campaign and geographic location we observed significant disparities in goal amount and funds raised between LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ cancer campaigns. However, LGBTQ+ campaigns on average had more donors. Our findings suggest that while there may be stronger community among LGBTQ+ populations (i.e., higher number of donors), LGBTQ+ cancer survivors may face substantial financial burden inequities. LGBTQ+ specific supportive services and interventions may help improve economic equity among cancer patients.

Citation Format: Echo L. Warner, Austin R. Waters, Caleb Easterly, Cindy Turner. Inequity in cancer crowdfunding among LGTBQ+ cancer survivors [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 2 (Clinical Trials and Late-Breaking Research); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(8_Suppl):Abstract nr LB140.