Moms, Coaches, Doctors, Entrepreneurs: Who Are America’s Health and Wellness Influencers?
Half of U.S. adults under 50 say they get health and wellness information from social media influencers or podcasts. About 4 in 10 of these influencers describe themselves as health care professionals; coaches and entrepreneurs are almost as common.
Pew Research Center
Most Americans say it’s important to be healthy, but fewer think they are doing a good job at managing their own health. They also report significant challenges figuring out the best way to reach their health goals: Around half of the public says they struggle to know which health information is accurate, and most have encountered conflicting advice about their health.
The vast majority of U.S. adults turn to health care providers for guidance through this confusing landscape. But four-in-ten U.S. adults (and half of those under 50) now get health and wellness information from social media influencers and podcasts.
To learn more about who these influencers are and how they present themselves to the world, we identified 6,828 individuals with at least 100,000 followers on YouTube, TikTok or Instagram that regularly post about health and wellness and analyzed their social media profiles. We paired this analysis with two surveys of U.S. adults that asked about their experiences with health and wellness influencers.
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