A Virtual Community for Immigrants with Cancer (VCIC)

While the diagnosis of cancer may be devastating news to anyone, it evokes particular fear in immigrants from countries where cancer survival rates are considerably lower than in the U.S. and where a diagnosis can lead to isolation from one's family and community. Distanced by language, immigrants are less likely to receive cancer education, treatment information, and support in their preferred language, at an appropriate literacy level, and in a culturally sensitive manner.

The Internet has revolutionized the practice of public health. Over the past two years, the Center for Immigrant Health has emphasized the use of information technology to enable creative public health applications, as well as to make our projects more effective and streamlined. The Internet has proven itself as a venue to enable non-immigrant patients to help one another through the emotional turmoil of disease, and to provide information. A virtual community is one of the most powerful uses of the Internet. People can meet, interact, share interests, and exchange social support via Online Support Groups (OSG). An increasing number of immigrant and minority households are going online. However, in the myriad of virtual communities that provide support to a growing number of cancer patients, not a single virtual community is targeted to immigrants with cancer.

The Virtual Community for Immigrants with Cancer (VCIC) is a pilot program for Spanish-speaking immigrants in New York City that will be evaluated carefully, to ultimately enable widespread availability. VCIC will provide specific informational, emotional, and social network support to immigrants with cancer, through an OSG. Spanish-speaking cancer patients will participate in weekly online chat-sessions with trained facilitators and experts in the field of cancer. Importantly, through this process, VCIC will evaluate the feasibility, acceptance, and effectiveness of OSGs within immigrant communities. We believe that VCIC will improve immigrants' attitudes and beliefs about their illness, improve their quality of life, and decrease levels of depression. Furthermore, by learning to access the Internet, participants will be in touch with an online community that will provide benefits long after the study is completed.