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.