SOURCE CaringBridge

Longitudinal study of CaringBridge authors offers evidence that online communities fill in the support gap health systems lack

BLOOMINGTON, Minn., Nov. 20, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- With more than 27 years of experience supporting families through health journeys, CaringBridge today releases a 2025 Impact Report: Online Health Communities' Impact on Caregiver Loneliness and Overwhelm. The longitudinal study analyzes data from 609 CaringBridge authors over an average of 82 days, offering new evidence that online health communities can measurably reduce caregiver loneliness and overwhelm, and CaringBridge functions as essential health infrastructure, filling a critical gap between clinical care and home-based caregiving.

As the invisible workforce of the healthcare system, family caregivers directly influence patient outcomes and care transitions. Yet health systems lack scalable, evidence-based tools to support them effectively.

This report explores how online communities help CaringBridge authors (caregivers and patients) feel less overwhelmed, isolated, and alone as they navigate serious health events, filling in the support gap that health systems lack. Nearly 30% of authors reported feeling significantly less overwhelmed after using CaringBridge. Other key findings include:

  • Quality of engagement matters more than quantity.
  • Patients and caregivers benefit differently, as do the impact of visitors and followers and comments and reactions.
  • Pages naturally evolve through four phases, and that evolution shapes emotional impact.
  • CaringBridge is a necessary part of the health infrastructure. This research confirms that activating digital communities measurably improves caregiver well-being, reduces overwhelm, and alleviates loneliness.

"This report underscores our belief that connection and community are critical, and a necessary part of the healthcare system," said Tia Newcomer, CaringBridge CEO. "It serves as both a reflection of our impact and a roadmap for how health systems, policymakers, and communities can better support caregivers in the moments they need it most."

For decades, researchers have used the UCLA Loneliness Scale as one of the most trusted tools to understand how connected - or disconnected - people feel. Building on that foundation, CaringBridge explored in this study how meaningful connections through online communities helped reduce loneliness and overwhelm. By learning from the experiences of people who shared their own and their loved ones' health journeys online, we aim to better understand how to strengthen support, helping family caregivers feel less overwhelmed, isolated, and lonely.

One such caregiver is John Fowler, who cared for his wife Nicki during her cancer journey.

"CaringBridge gave my community a way to give me encouragement and pick-me-ups from a distance. I'd be tossing and turning and I would think, 'I'm going to come down and write something' and I would sleep fine after that," John said. "People are so good. If you ask for help, and sometimes if you don't, people show up in amazing ways. CaringBridge was a big part of that."

The CaringBridge Impact Report is available here.

About CaringBridge 

CaringBridge?is a no-cost, 501(c)(3) nonprofit health platform that surrounds family caregivers with support while they care for a loved one on a health journey. A donor-supported nonprofit founded in 1997, the organization offers tools to share and document a health journey, coordinate help, and connect caregivers with their community. 

Every 11 minutes, a new CaringBridge page is created. Each year, over 10.2 million messages are posted that offer encouragement, support, and comfort to family caregivers and their loved ones. In partnership with Go Fund Me and InComm Payments Gift Cards, over $10 million is raised annually to meet families' financial needs. Additionally, more than 16,000 meals are delivered through partnerships with Meal Train and Instacart. 

CaringBridge serves all 50 states and more than 240 countries worldwide.  

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