Exposure and Reactions to Cancer Treatment Misinformation and Advice: Survey Study

Cancer treatment misinformation, or false claims about alternative cures, often spreads faster and farther than true information on social media. Cancer treatment misinformation can harm the psychosocial and physical health of individuals with cancer and their cancer care networks by causing distress and encouraging people to abandon support, potentially leading to deviations from evidence-based care. There is a pressing need to understand how cancer treatment misinformation is shared and uncover ways to reduce misinformation.

We aimed to better understand exposure and reactions to cancer treatment misinformation, including the willingness of study participants to prosocially intervene and their intentions to share Instagram posts with cancer treatment misinformation.

We conducted a survey on cancer treatment misinformation among US adults in December 2021. Participants reported their exposure and reactions to cancer treatment misinformation generally (saw or heard, source, type of advice, and curiosity) and specifically on social media (platform, believability). Participants were then randomly assigned to view 1 of 3 cancer treatment misinformation posts or an information post and asked to report their willingness to prosocially intervene and their intentions to share.

Among US adult participants (N=603; mean age 46, SD 18.83 years), including those with cancer and cancer caregivers, almost 1 in 4 (142/603, 23.5%) received advice about alternative ways to treat or cure cancer. Advice was primarily shared through family (39.4%) and friends (37.3%) for digestive (30.3%) and natural (14.1%) alternative cancer treatments, which generated curiosity among most recipients (106/142, 74.6%). More than half of participants (337/603, 55.9%) saw any cancer treatment misinformation on social media, with significantly higher exposure for those with cancer (53/109, 70.6%) than for those without cancer (89/494, 52.6%; P<.001). Participants saw cancer misinformation on Facebook (39.8%), YouTube (27%), Instagram (22.1%), and TikTok (14.1%), among other platforms. Participants (429/603, 71.1%) thought cancer treatment misinformation was true, at least sometimes, on social media. More than half (357/603, 59.2%) were likely to share any cancer misinformation posts shown. Many participants (412/603, 68.3%) were willing to prosocially intervene for any cancer misinformation posts, including flagging the cancer treatment misinformation posts as false (49.7%-51.4%) or reporting them to the platform (48.1%-51.4%). Among the participants, individuals with cancer and those who identified as Black or Hispanic reported greater willingness to intervene to reduce cancer misinformation but also higher intentions to share misinformation.

Cancer treatment misinformation reaches US adults through social media, including on widely used platforms for support. Many believe that social media posts about alternative cancer treatment are true at least some of the time. The willingness of US adults, including those with cancer and members of susceptible populations, to prosocially intervene could initiate the necessary community action to reduce cancer treatment misinformation if coupled with strategies to help individuals discern false claims.