Crowdsourcing Cancer Survivors' Perspectives on the Use of Artificial Intelligence and Automation in Financial...

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) or automation in financial hardship (FH) interventions has the potential to increase reach and address implementation challenges. However, cancer survivor perceptions of how AI or automation could be used in FH interventions are understudied.

Eligibility for an online crowdsourcing study included being ≥18 years of age, a cancer survivor, and living in the United States. The survey asked open-ended crowdsourcing questions about how survivors thought AI/automation could have improved their experience with financial assistance and health insurance. A qualitative content analysis was conducted that consisted of two cycles of coding including the use of ChatGPT-5 to generate the preliminary codebook.

A total of N = 198 cancer survivors participated and were on average age 50.3 years (standard deviation [SD], 14.3) and age 40.1 years at diagnosis (SD, 16.2), most commonly non-Hispanic/Latine (89.9%), White (86.9%), cisgender women (69.2%), and heterosexual (70.2%). Qualitative analysis revealed seven subcategories within the financial assistance category: (1) efficient search and personalized resource matching, (2) application support and process navigation, (3) insurance and billing support, (4) conversational and interactive tools, (5) connecting to human support, (6) emotional support, and (7) concerns and lack of applicability. Furthermore, five subcategories were identified within the health insurance support category: (1) health insurance education tools and decision support, (2) health insurance navigation, (3) system simplification or automation, (4) connecting to resources and human support, and (5) concerns and lack of applicability.

Overall, cancer survivors generated a variety of ideas focused on reducing the administrative burden of seeking out financial assistance and dealing with health insurance. Findings demonstrate that cancer survivors could imagine AI or automation being used in FH interventions.