Anthropological look at cancer Web site wins award

Four years ago Lily Mulcahy '09 had never heard of the I'm too young for This! Cancer Foundation, which supports and advocates for young cancer survivors through its Web site. That changed after she was diagnosed with metastatic thyroid cancer during finals her freshman year.

In seeking answers about her cancer, she found the organization's Web site and began networking with others living with cancer. Since then the anthropology major has gone beyond being a casual Web visitor to being a researcher, which has won her an award.

Her research paper won a first prize in the undergraduate student paper competition at the 6th Annual Greater Boston Anthropology Consortium Student Conference. Mulcahy is continuing to work on the research for her senior thesis. She has been exploring the impact of the Web site and the network of young survivors it has fostered. In her paper "I'm Too Young for This: Multivocality in Young Cancer Advocacy," she asks: "What can a network that brings the weight of health to the casual Web's social media actually provide to this community of individuals?"

She knows from personal experience as well as from anthropological analysis that the answer is 'a lot.' She underwent seven hours of surgery when she was 18 to remove her thyroid, some muscle tissue and lymph nodes. She also received radiation treatment. But medical issues were only part of her challenge. When she was first diagnosed with cancer she said she felt lost.

"I really didn't know what to do," she said. "It was difficult to live with so much upheaval--from what each member of my family was going through to how my relationships with friends were changing. It can feel like the way you relate to others in your life is all suddenly completely different. It's lonely. So you look for people who might understand what's happening."

She found them by making connections on the Web site, as well as with Matthew Zachary, the foundation and Web site founder who was diagnosed with pediatric brain cancer while he was in college. Rebellious and candid, the Web site provides an irreverent approach to illness, and even offers T-shirts and mugs emblazoned with the words: "stupid cancer" and "stupid chemo."

In conducting research, Mulcahy has been doing hour-long interviews with a sampling of those who use the Web site. In her paper, she writes about how she has become fascinated by the complexity of their opinions about the organization's message and methods. She notes that the site users seek help and support the foundation's efforts, yet they criticize and challenge the foundation by pushing for more for their underserved population.

According to the Web site, cancer incidence in young adults ages 15 to 39 has doubled over the past 30 years to nearly 70,000 diagnoses each year. There was an estimated 37,340 new cases of thyroid cancer in the United States in 2008, according to the National Cancer Institute. (Most thyroid cancers are considered very treatable.)

 "This is a community study about how people can find ways to link together. For me anthropology has always been multidisciplinary, multifocused, and that's why I was interested in it," she said. "I think an anthropological study brings us to think about seemingly unrelated issues. And it can almost be a touch point for the process of wondering how this connects to that, or how we can shed light on how other people form communities on the Web or what it means to form communities on the Web."

Professor of Anthropology Donna Kerner considers Mulcahy's research innovative and groundbreaking.

"Lily's research falls under the specialization in socio-cultural anthropology known as Medical Anthropology. This specialization is one of the fastest growing and rich areas of research because medical fields, disease vectors and target populations are shifting so quickly," said Kerner.

"It is widely acknowledged now that medical problems cannot be solved by scientists alone; they require multidisciplinary teams of researchers to tackle the complex social, political and economic factors that affect public health. Lily's work accesses the latest theoretical models that anthropologists have developed to understand how patients experience diagnosis, disease and treatment through the culturally constructed body. Her theoretical review of the literature weaves a lucid synthesis of previous research with the original dimension of social conceptions of time and generation."