Nora Kenworthy in the news

Dr. Nora Kenworthy, Associate Professor in the School of Nursing & Health Studies, had several features in the national media conversation about equity and access in healthcare and the social impacts of medical crowdfunding.

In the November 2019 issue of The Atlantic, the “GoFundMe Nation” article leaned on Kenworthy’s (along with UWB IAS co-investigator Dr. Lauren Berliner) research and assessments of GoFundMe as a space for fundraising for health care. Medical crowdfunding “undermines the sense of a right to health care in the U.S. and replaces it with people competing for what are essentially scraps,” The nuanced piece described the social impacts and the very personal realities for people hoping to fund their health campaigns and challenges some assumptions about the meritocratic approach the platform asserts as its foundation. You can find the full article at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/gofundme-nation/598369/.

In addition, Dr. Kenworthy’s research was included in a feature on Medicare for All during the February 16th episode of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” The show quoted Kenworthy and Berliner’s research from Social Science & Medicine that outlined the characteristics of medical crowdfunding campaigns, noting that 90% of GoFundMe campaigns of this type do not meet their goal, and an average netted just over 40% of their goal. In his typically sardonic way, Mr. Oliver drives home the point of these shortcomings by noting one featured child’s surgery funding was leaning on hopes of getting “a signal boost from “Jiffpom the Pomeranian’s” Instagram account. You can see Mr. Oliver’s satirical approach to this important topic here: https://youtu.be/7Z2XRg3dy9k.