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.