Like a Grinding Stone

How Crowdfunding Platforms Create, Perpetuate, and Value Health Inequities

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2289031
AutoresN Kenworthy (0000-0002-6809-5574, School of Nursing and Health Studies University of Washington Bothell, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen35
Número3
Páginas327-345
Fecha de publicación2021-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaMedical Anthropology Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0745-5194 • E-ISSN: 1548-1387
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/maq.12639
PMID33711178
OpenAlexW3133937066
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9
Referencias citadas44

This article explores how inequities are reproduced by, and valued within, the increasingly ubiquitous world of medical crowdfunding. As patients use platforms like GoFundMe to solicit donations for health care, success stories inundate social media. But most crowdfunders experience steep odds and marginal benefits. Drawing on the problematic figure of the "black box" in health disparities research and technology studies, I offer ethnography as a tool for unpacking often inscrutable and complex pathways through which online platforms amplify inequities. By leveraging both online and traditional research strategies-a platform analysis and paired narratives of crowdfunders' disparate experiences, drawn from open-ended interviews-this article explores how inequities are created and experienced by users. The analysis highlights how inequities are simultaneously central to the functioning of this marketplace and occluded by its platform design. Consequently, crowdfunding is concealing health inequities while shifting public values about who is entitled to health care, and why

Ethnography · Health care · Health equity · Narrative · Odds · Political science · Public relations · Social media · Sociology · Unpacking · FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance · Medicine · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion · Sharing Economy and Platforms