40% of Americans Get Health Information From Influencers

Some people are turning to TikTok and Instagram before seeing or even going to health care providers. Who are these online influencers and who is looking at their content? Pew Research Center 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. They paired this analysis with two surveys of U.S. adults that asked about their experiences with health and wellness influencers. Some of the key findings include:

Four-in-ten U.S. adults – and half of those under the age of 50 – say they ever 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
Co-hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter discuss the findings with Galen Stocking, the associate director of research on the Science and Society Team at Pew Research Center. Click now to understand the implications of this shift in how people get information about their health and well-being.