HEALTH EQUITY PROGRAMME · LAUNCHING 2026
One Connection
1:1 peer support for people going through cancer. Matched by diagnosis and lived experience.
Cancer treatment has a schedule. The loneliness that follows it does not. One Connection pairs a person going through cancer with someone who has been through it: the same diagnosis, the same treatment, on video, in their own language, at no cost. This page describes the programme, the evidence it is built on, and exactly where it stands.
- Format
- 1:1 video calls. Not a forum, not a chatbot.
- Matching
- Cancer type, treatment, and lived experience. A person reads every application.
- First cohort
- Bone marrow and stem cell transplant survivors
- Status
- Launching 2026. Pilot designed; clinical partners being confirmed.
- Cost
- Free for every participant and clinical partner, always
Support peaks at diagnosis. Then it falls away.
Everyone shows up at the beginning. Longitudinal research documents what patients already know: support thins out at the exact point where the medical system does. The hardest months are usually the quietest.
52%
report greater isolation after a cancer diagnosis, rising to 57% during active treatment.
ACS CAN 2023 · N=1,1559-18
months after diagnosis: the window where social networks contract most sharply, as follow-up care tapers.
CREW STUDY · N=87129%
of patients experience a meaningful decline in social support within two years of diagnosis.
CREW STUDY · N=871Without a single confidant, 92% of patients report loneliness. With just one: 60%.
One person changes the number. That is the premise this programme is built on.
WHAT THE RESEARCH SHOWS
67%
higher risk of death from any cause among cancer survivors reporting severe loneliness.
ZHAO ET AL. 2024 · JNCCN · N=3,447 · AHR 1.67 (95% CI 1.25-2.23) · P=.004The direction is confirmed at scale: a 2025 meta-analysis of 1.6 million patients found loneliness raises both all-cause and cancer-specific mortality.
BMJ ONCOLOGY 2025 · META-ANALYSIS · N=1.6MAmong transplant survivors with chronic graft-versus-host disease, self-reported depression was associated with 62% higher mortality.
EL-JAWAHRI ET AL. 2018 · BBMT · N=482 · HR 1.62 · P=.020Loneliness is not a footnote to cancer. It is a risk factor. And unlike most risk factors, it can be changed.
THE QUIETEST HOURS ARE THE HARDEST ONES TO DO ALONE.
Peer support works. The research is specific about how.
Six systematic reviews and more than eleven randomised trials. The effects are real, and they depend entirely on how the support is built.
0.48-0.69
-0.24 to -0.45
-0.23
What the trials say works
- Trained and supervised peers, not goodwill alone
- Video or face-to-face delivery, not text threads
- Structured protocols with scheduled check-ins
- Matching on cancer type and treatment history
- Four to six months of sustained contact
What fails, in the same trials
- Unstructured online forums: null or negative outcomes, despite high satisfaction
- Unmoderated internet groups slowed psychological recovery against controls
- Telephone-only contact for recurrent cancer: no effect
One Connection is designed from this list. Every finding above maps to a decision in how the programme works.
How the programme works.
The model is deliberately simple. The rigour is underneath it.
1:1 video calls with someone who has been through cancer. Someone who had the same diagnosis, sat through the same treatment, and came out the other side.
Paired by cancer type, treatment, and lived experience. The platform proposes the match; a person reads every application before anyone is introduced.
Real-time translation on the call. The person who understands the diagnosis does not have to speak the same language.
Three phases with clear milestones, from a first introduction call to an independent connection. Structure is what separates what works from what fails in the trial record.
Peer support is not therapy and not clinical care, and this programme never pretends otherwise. Mentors are trained, supervised, and know exactly when and where to refer.
No paywalls and no premium tier, for participants or for clinical partners. TEEI is a nonprofit; the programme is the work, not the upsell.
TWO PEOPLE, MATCHED BY WHAT THEY HAVE LIVED.
The technology already runs.
One Connection is not waiting on software. The systems it needs run in production today for TEEI's education programmes, serving people in 187+ countries. The work under way is adapting them to the clinical context: safeguarding, escalation paths, and the pilot protocol.
SISTER PROGRAMMES ON THE SAME PLATFORM FAMILY: TEEI LANGUAGE · TEEI MENTORSHIP · SKILLS ACADEMY
WHERE THE HUNDRED DAYS BEGIN.
Transplant survivors come first.
Bone marrow and stem cell transplant survivors carry the heaviest isolation of any cancer group, and have the least support built for them. Their isolation is not a feeling first. It is a medical instruction.
Weeks 2-6
Hospital isolation in a HEPA-filtered room, visitors restricted.
Days 0-100
The hundred days: rigorous self-isolation after discharge.
Months 6-24
Ongoing immunocompromised restrictions on social contact.
Chronic GVHD
For those on lifelong immunosuppression, the restrictions have no end date.
70%
of transplant patients have no formal peer support of any kind.
ESTIMATE · SYSTEMATIC REVIEW 2022 · HEMATOLOGIC CANCERS8 studies
with 574 patients in total: the entire peer-support research base for blood cancers. Breast cancer alone has hundreds of support organisations.
SYSTEMATIC REVIEW 2022 · PEER SUPPORT IN HEMATOLOGIC MALIGNANCYThis cohort was not picked from a spreadsheet. One Connection is being designed from lived experience of the transplant ward: the isolation room, the hundred days, the restrictions that do not end on schedule.
STARTING NARROW, EXPANDING TO ALL CANCER TYPES AS THE PILOT PROVES THE MODEL.BEFORE LAUNCH
Designed to clinical standards.
Peer support programmes usually launch on goodwill and hope for the best. This one launches as a registered feasibility study, measured with validated instruments, so the evidence it produces can be trusted, published, and built on.
Where this stands: the protocol is drafted. A principal investigator and clinical partners are being confirmed. The study has not begun.
- Design
- Single-arm feasibility study, pre-post measurement, embedded qualitative component
- Population
- 50 transplant survivors and 20 trained peer mentors
- Intervention
- 6 months of structured 1:1 video peer support
- Measures
- UCLA-3 loneliness, PHQ-9, GAD-7, FACT-BMT quality of life, PROMIS social isolation
- Reporting
- CONSORT extension for pilot and feasibility trials
- Registration
- ClinicalTrials.gov, before the first participant enrols
MORNING COMES. IT IS EASIER WITH SOMEONE WHO KNOWS.
Someone who understands. That is the entire programme.
One Connection opens in 2026, with transplant survivors first. If it is for you or someone you love, we will tell you the day it opens. If you work in transplant care, research, or funding, the protocol and the platform are ready to discuss.
2026
Launch
N=50
Feasibility pilot, transplant survivors
$0
Cost to participants, ever
1:1
One person, matched by diagnosis