Health eCommunities - The Impact of Listservs on Cancer Patients

The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of participation in the Association of Cancer Online Resources (ACOR) mailing lists on chronic disease management for cancer patients, we are focusing on several priority areas. These include factors that influence the use of online interventions over time and the effects of patient-provider interactions on the use of eHealth interventions (as well as vice versa). We also are breaking new ground in a number of important methodological areas related to online survey research. Our specific aims are: 1. Conduct a qualitative analysis of a 10% sample of messages (approximately 5,200) obtained over 5 months from 9 ACOR lists to develop a comprehensive set of potential chronic disease management outcomes and a fuller understanding of the issues and themes that characterize list participation. The content analysis will identify important themes and issues in the messages. These themes and issues will help in survey refinement and ground our proposed quantitative survey questionnaire items. Survey analyses will also be enriched by the qualitative data. Finally, the qualitative analysis will stand as an independent body of work. 2. Conduct a web-based survey of at least 1,680 new ACOR mailing list patient members and approximately 1,680 non-patient subscribers to assess the positive and negative effects of participation in ACOR lists at one month and four months after joining the list and completing a baseline survey. 3. Disseminate study findings to ACOR leadership, participants and the larger online community. 4. Develop a plan to convert the findings into training, recommendations, tools and policies to improve list processes. We aim to answer real world, practical questions using methodology that is at once rigorous, practical and ethical. The components are inter-related and complementary.