Mark Erica, Sridharan Mira, Florenzo Brian, Schenck Olivia L, Noland Mary-Margaret B, Barbieri John S, Lipoff Jules B
Department of Dermatology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States.
Department of Dermatology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
JMIR Dermatol. 2022 Apr 22;5(2):e34111. doi: 10.2196/34111.
Crowdfunding for medical costs is becoming increasingly popular. Few previous studies have described the fundraising characteristics and qualities associated with success.
This study aimed to characterize and investigate the qualities associated with successful dermatological fundraisers.
This cross-sectional study of dermatological GoFundMe campaigns collected data, including demographic variables, thematic variables using an inductive qualitative method, and quantitative information. Linear regression examined the qualities associated with success, which are defined based on funds raised when controlling for campaign goals. Logistic regression was used to examine qualities associated with extremely successful campaigns, defined as those raising >1.5 times the IQR. Statistical significance was set at P<.05.
A total of 2008 publicly available campaigns at the time of data collection were evaluated. Nonmodifiable factors associated with greater success included male gender, age 20-40 years, and White race. Modifiable factors associated with success included more updates posted to the campaign page, non-self-identity of the campaign creator, mention of a chronic condition, and smiling in campaign profile photographs.
Understanding the modifiable factors of medical crowdfunding may inform future campaigns, and nonmodifiable factors may have policy implications for improving health care equity and financing. Crowdfunding for medical disease treatment may have potential implications for medical privacy and exacerbation of existing health care disparities. This study was limited to publicly available GoFundMe campaigns. Potential limitations for this study include intercoder variability, misclassification bias because of the data abstraction process, and prioritization of campaigns based on the proprietary GoFundMe algorithm.
医疗费用众筹越来越受欢迎。以往很少有研究描述筹款特征及与成功相关的特质。
本研究旨在描述并调查与成功的皮肤科筹款活动相关的特质。
这项对皮肤科GoFundMe众筹活动的横断面研究收集了数据，包括人口统计学变量、采用归纳定性方法的主题变量以及定量信息。线性回归分析了与成功相关的特质，这些特质是在控制活动目标的情况下根据筹集到的资金来定义的。逻辑回归用于检验与极其成功的活动相关的特质，极其成功的活动定义为筹集资金超过四分位距的1.5倍。统计学显著性设定为P<0.05。
在数据收集时，共评估了2008个公开可用的活动。与更大成功相关的不可改变因素包括男性、20至40岁以及白人种族。与成功相关的可改变因素包括在活动页面发布更多更新内容、活动发起者非自我身份、提及慢性病以及在活动简介照片中微笑。
了解医疗众筹的可改变因素可能为未来的活动提供参考，而不可改变因素可能对改善医疗保健公平性和融资具有政策意义。医疗疾病治疗众筹可能对医疗隐私以及加剧现有的医疗保健差距有潜在影响。本研究仅限于公开可用的GoFundMe活动。本研究的潜在局限性包括编码员间的变异性、由于数据提取过程导致的错误分类偏差以及基于GoFundMe专有算法对活动的优先级排序。
