Helping people navigate and make sense of cancer information: challenges and perspectives

People living with cancer, and their caregivers and families, have access to many sources of health information. This brings both positives and challenges. Some information is not easy to understand and it can be difficult to know what is relevant to an individual’s situation. It can also be difficult to know what sources are trustworthy, how to check accuracy, and what might be false information (misinformation or disinformation). This podcast brings together the perspectives of a medical oncologist, a patient advocate, and a recipient of risk-mitigating cancer care who also brings experience of caregiving and volunteering for an organization that provides information to support those at risk of developing cancer. They discuss various approaches to help people find relevant and trustworthy health information, and consider how healthcare providers can support this. An accompanying infographic provides a patient’s guide to cancer-focused medical journals, which can be shared with people with cancer and their caregivers to help open the door to the patient-friendly content that is sometimes published by these journals. Overall, people are encouraged to seek support from their healthcare providers to find and interpret cancer information, with consideration of relevance to their own situation and the validity of the source. There are lots of places where people can look for information about cancer, for example on websites or social media. People may also use AI (artificial intelligence) tools as a starting point to help pull information together. Some information can be useful, but some can be hard to make sense of, or even untrue, and some may only relate to particular types of cancer, which could lead to unrealistic expectations of treatment options and outcomes. How can people with cancer and their families be sure that they are finding the best information for their needs? This podcast talks through the challenges and offers ideas to help people find and understand trustworthy health information. It comes with a patient’s guide to cancer-focused medical journals, which explains what journals are and the types of patient-friendly content that they can contain. As well as being for people with cancer and their families, the podcast is also for doctors and other healthcare providers who want to help their patients. Healthcare providers have an important role in helping their patients find good quality information about their own particular type of cancer. We encourage patients to ask their healthcare providers questions about where to find information and what it means. A PDF version of this infographic is available as supplemental material.