Consumer Health Trends to Watch in 2025

Top 3 Consumer Health Trends to Watch in 2025

Consumer health behaviors are constantly changing and influencing the way people manage their health. Trends in the way people interact with the providers, health technology, and other people in the health care ecosystem are shaping the future of health care in so many ways.

The top three trends we are watching heading into 2025 have major implications for how we engage people in healthier living. All three trends speak to the growing cultural movement towards making better health a priority – and raise real risks and opportunities for how we can best help people navigate those goals with the best possible outcomes.

Consumer Health Trend #1: Dr. Tik Tok

Younger generations are increasingly influenced by social media when it comes to health information. New data found that 1 in 3 members of Gen Z use Tik Tok as their main source of health information (Attitudes to Wellness on TikTok, Zing, 2024).

While looking online for health information is nothing new, younger generations are sometimes ditching the internet altogether in favor of Tik Tok (Attitudes to Wellness on TikTok, Zing, 2024).

Why we’re watching

Whether or not Tik Tok remains an option for health information, it has become clear that social media will play an important role in how people access health information in the future. We believe these platforms can be a great tool for raising awareness, but the lack of any guardrails on health information presents a real risk, especially for people with diagnosed health conditions.

We believe learning to leverage the social aspects of this trend in digital health can be a powerful way to capture meaningful engagement – and we’re paying close attention to how the potential changes in social media next year might create new opportunities to leverage this trend.

Consumer Health Trend #2: GLP-1s go mainstream

Stories on GLP-1s were hard to escape this year, but new and existing barriers meant that they were hard to come by in reality for many people who needed the medications.

As 2024 comes to an end, some of the barriers are beginning to break down as inventive partnerships start to reduce costs and heavy investment from drug makers starts to chip away at coverage issues. Adoption seems poised to significantly expand in 2025 and with that trend, we are starting to see changes in the consumer industry.

Why we’re watching

When major food companies start putting GLP-1 diet friendly labeling on their packaging, you know we’ve hit an inflection point. (Yahoo Finance, Christopher Doering, 2024) The continued spotlight on these medications will continue to fuel more consumer-directed efforts aimed at increasing and supporting usage. The virtual surround sound might be well intentioned, but we’re betting it will also bring a whole new need for understanding of the end-to-end journey.

Consumer Health Trend #3: DIY health and wellness keeps rising

Americans are more focused on their personal wellness than ever fueled by trends such as health-at-home, which gained popularity during the COVID pandemic, and increasing innovations in technologies such as wearables to track health data (Future of Wellness, McKinsey, 2024).

Never have consumers had so many options to monitor, understand and manage their health. The growing options for control are dovetailing with an explosion of “hacks” to help people meet their health goals.

What we’re watching

We’re celebrating this cultural turn towards health-positive trends while remaining mindful of the importance of high-quality information. Innovation in the field of consumer health care is often outpacing people’s ability to understand the data and long-term implications. Misinformation has a way of spreading quickly alongside innovation, and there is a lot of work ahead to help people experience better health while instilling confidence in the value of medical professionals alongside our new tech tools.

In 2025, there will be plenty of attention paid to trends in health and wellness as a new administration influences conversations on this topic. The entire health care ecosystem, especially digital health, will need to be thoughtful about how information is presented to engender trust in the long run.