Gen Z increasingly listens to peers over doctors for health advice
Young adults around the world are increasingly taking health decisions into their own hands, according to new global survey results from communications firm Edelman.
Why it matters: Adults under age 35, many who've come of age since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, still rely on their individual providers to help with medical choices. But they're also seeking information on their own more than ever.
"Younger adults have truly created their own health ecosystem with how they're looking for information, who they trust, what they're doing with health information," said Courtney Gray Haupt, global chief operating officer and U.S. health sector chair at Edelman.
What they found: In all age groups, but especially among adults younger than age 35, peer-driven health care decisions surged between 2024 and 2025.
45% of adults age 18 to 34 said they've disregarded their health provider's guidance in favor of information from a friend or family member in the past year — a 13-point increase from the previous year.
38% of young adults said they've ignored their provider in favor of advice from social media, a 12-point increase from the year before.
Edelman surveyed more than 16,000 people across 16 countries in March.
Zoom in: Credentials and institutional credence are becoming less important to health care consumers — especially younger ones.
The vast majority of young adults (82%) still said their individual doctor has influenced their health decisions. But one-third of young adults also reported content creators without medical training have influenced their health decisions.
Some 45% of young adults say the average person can know as much about health matters as trained doctors, a 7-point increase from 2024 survey data.
Meanwhile, 61% of U.S. respondents across all age groups said they feel business, government and non-governmental organization actions hurt their ability to get quality health care. Fewer than 40% in the U.S. said they trust the media to accurately report health care information.
Between the lines: Young adults are engaging with health media more than other age groups, the survey shows.
The averages across all age groups are 53% and 39%, respectively.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. Used 'Disinformation' to Defend Change to Vaccine Schedule, Expert Says: Reports
The Department of Health and Human Services sent Congress a document that cited disputed studies and misrepresented other findings, according to NPR and KFF Health News The document was written in support of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to change federal COVID vaccine recommendations for healthy kids and pregnant women 'This is RFK Jr.'s playbook,' said Sean O'Leary, chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of PediatricsThe Department of Health and Human Services sent Congress a document to support Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to change federal vaccine recommendations that cited unpublished or disputed studies and misrepresented other findings, according to NPR and KFF Health News. In late May, Kennedy, who has a history of vaccine skepticism, announced on X that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) removed the COVID vaccine from the recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women, while touting President Trump's Make America Healthy Again agenda. "It is so far out of left field that I find it insulting to our members of Congress that they would actually give them something like this. Congress members are relying on these agencies to provide them with valid information, and it's just not there," Dr. Mark Turrentine, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine, told KFF Health News, the outlet that obtained the FAQ document. The outlet also reported that the document suggests a link between heart conditions like myocarditis or pericarditis and the COVID vaccine, but updated research suggests that connection has decreased with newer vaccine procedures. The document also left out multiple other peer-reviewed studies that show the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis is greater after getting sick with COVID for both vaccinated and non-vaccinated people than the risk of the same complications after vaccination alone, per KFF Health News. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. "There is no distortion of the studies in this document. The underlying data speaks for itself, and it raises legitimate safety concerns. HHS will not ignore that evidence or downplay it. We will follow the data and the science," a HHS spokesperson told KFF Health News. 'This is RFK Jr.'s playbook,' Sean O'Leary, chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told KFF Health News. 'Either cherry-pick from good science or take junk science to support his premise — this has been his playbook for 20 years.' Read the original article on People
Hamilton Spectator
44 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
From Dunnville to Niagara: Innovation, personalized care key to Hauser's Pharmacy longevity
While it's not quite accurate to say Phil Hauser comes from a long line of pharmacists — unless you call second generation a long line — the profession is in his blood. 'I took my first steps in the back room of the pharmacy,' he said. That would be Hauser's Pharmacy. The Dunnville business was opened by his father Jim, who with his mother Bonnie took over a long-running pharmacy in 1980. Over the next 45 years, it has remained a fixture in that town. It gradually spread across southern Ontario — its first offshoot was in St. Catharines in 2014 when Hauser's opened in the new hospital. Last year, Hauser's opened its second location in the region, in the former CIBC building on Queen Street in Niagara Falls, a site it shares with a physician clinic. All the while, the pharmacy has maintained its independence and commitment to personalized care. 'We recognize every patient wants something different from their health-care provider,' said Hauser, who took over the family business in 2007 following his graduation from pharmacy school. 'Some people simply want their prescription filled fast and effectively, and we do that. Some people want more. Some people have a lot of questions about their conditions, some people want to question a lot of the information that they find online, and some people need that personal connection before discussing things that are otherwise very personal.' Hauser's Pharmacy current owner Phil Hauser in front of the prescription counter at the Dunnville store in 2021. At the time, Hauser's was preparing to administer COVID-19 vaccines. About the same time he took over the business, Hauser was elected to Ontario Pharmacists Association, for which he served six years. Among other things during that time, he advocated for an increased role of pharmacists in patient health care. Hauser's was one of 32 pharmacies involved in a pilot program in Ontario offering flu shots — something that has since been rolled out across the province. But the advocacy and innovation has been a constant thread in the family business, Hauser said. In the early 1980s, his mom called on the Health Ministry to have tobacco products removed from pharmacy shelves. 'Even though it was a significant source of income for pharmacies, it flew in the face of being a health-care provider, and providing something that we knew was poisonous or a detriment to people's health in the same breath,' Hauser said. Bonnie and Jim Hauser at a computer terminal in their Dunnville pharmacy. In the early 1980s, Hauser's Pharmacy was one of the first in Ontario to incorporate computerized patient prescription records. Also in the 1980s, Hauser's was also one of the first pharmacies to incorporate computer records to track patient prescriptions . 'It's something we take for granted today, but back then you were flipping through people's prescriptions and just making sure the refills were still valid,' he said. 'There wasn't the same level of continuous care that we're used to.' Hauser's launching a mobility and home health care division in 2014, Supper Services, its in-home private care division in 2021 and a remote dispensary operation for an underserved community in the Muskoka region in 2022. Hauser said this history of innovation and ability to provide a continuum of care for patients is what made the business an attractive choice for pharmacy partner with the now-named Marotta Family Hospital in St. Catharines. 'They recognized that our mission, our philosophy of bringing better patient care, was a key tenant that the NHS wanted to do, which was to guide the continuity of care for patients that were leaving outpatient clinics or were leaving the hospital altogether, and then making sure they had the proper transition into community care,' he said. This year, the pharmacy is marking its 45th anniversary at all nine of its stores with monthly giveaways, sales o throughout the year, children's colouring contests and rolling discounts. See its website, , to sign up to receive information or follow Hauser's on its social media channels. Hauser said their ability to remain independent lies in them striving to provide continual value for their patients. 'We want to provide the best level of health care,' he said. 'And I think that's not always something that's evident until you experience it. And when you experience it … my hope is when you come into a Hauser's Pharmacy and you notice a difference in the quality of care that that means something to you.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Why People Are Having Fewer Kids, Even If They Want Them
The global fertility rate has, on average, dropped to less than half what it was in the 1960s, according to the United Nations. Credit - Getty Images People across the world have been having fewer and fewer children, and it's not always because they don't want them. The global fertility rate has, on average, dropped to less than half what it was in the 1960s, the United Nations has found, falling below the 'replacement level' required to maintain the current population in the majority of countries. Amid that historic decline, nearly 20% of adults of reproductive age from 14 countries around the globe believe they won't be able to have the number of children they want to, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN's sexual and reproductive health and rights agency, said in a report released this week. For most of them, the report found it isn't infertility keeping them from doing so. They pointed to factors including financial limitations, barriers to fertility or pregnancy-related medical care, and fears of the state of the world that they say are hindering them from making their own fertility and reproductive choices. 'There are a lot of people out there who are willing to have children—and have more children than they have—if the conditions were right, and the government's obligation is to provide those measures of well-being, of welfare, which enable good work-life balance, secure employment, reduce the legal barriers, provide better health care and services,' says Shalini Randeria, the president of the Central European University in Vienna and the senior external advisor for the UNFPA report. But she says policies that some governments are implementing—such as cutting Medicaid in the U.S. and enforcing restrictions on reproductive health and autonomy—are both a step backward for people's rights and 'counterproductive from a demographic point of view.' Read more: Why So Many Women Are Waiting Longer to Have Kids For the report, UNFPA conducted a survey, in collaboration with YouGov, of people in 14 countries in Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Africa that, together, represent more than a third of the world's population. 'There is a gap between the number of children people would have liked to have had and the number they had,' Randeria says. 'For us, it was important to then figure out—by asking them—what it is that causes this gap.' The most significant barriers survey respondents identified to having the number of children they desired were economic: 39% cited financial limitations, 19% housing limitations, 12% lack of sufficient or quality childcare options, and 21% unemployment or job insecurity. The prices for all kinds of goods and services have climbed precipitously in recent years. Global inflation reached the highest level seen since the mid-1990s in July 2022, according to the World Bank Group. While it has declined since then, the current levels are still significantly above those seen before the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more: Why Affordable Childcare Is Out of Reach for So Many People Rising costs have hit both housing and childcare hard. In the U.S., for instance, the Treasury Department has found that housing costs have increased faster than incomes for the past two decades, surging about 65% since 2000 when adjusted for inflation. And research has found that the cost of child care in the U.S. has shot up in recent years, surpassing what many Americans pay for housing or college. The current housing crisis is impacting 'every region and country,' the United Nations Human Settlements Programme said in a report last year, estimating that between 1.6 billion and 3 billion people around the world do not have adequate housing. People cited other factors getting in the way of them having as many children as they want as well, including barriers to assisted reproduction and surrogacy. Several countries—including France, Spain, Germany, and Italy—have banned surrogacy. The UNFPA report also points out that many countries restrict or ban access to assisted reproduction and surrogacy for same-sex couples. In Europe, for instance, only 17 out of 49 countries allow medically-assisted insemination for people, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the report. The UNFPA notes that, as global fertility rates are declining, some governments are taking 'drastic measures to incentivize young people to make fertility decisions in line with national targets.' But the report argues that the 'real crisis' is 'a crisis in reproductive agency—in the ability of individuals to make their own free, informed and unfettered choices about everything from having sex to using contraception to starting a family.' According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, 40% of women of reproductive age around the world live under restrictive abortion laws. Many countries—including Brazil, the Philippines, and Poland, among others—have severely restricted abortion. In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark ruling Roe v. Wade, striking down the constitutional right to abortion. Since then, more than a dozen states have enacted near-total bans or restricted abortion. There have been many reports of pregnant people being denied critical care because of state laws restricting abortions, and many women have said they don't feel safe being pregnant in states where abortion is banned. And while a growing share of women around the world are having their family planning needs met, around 164 million still were not as of 2021, the UN found in a report released in 2022. In addition to considering access to family planning a human right, the UN also notes that it is key to reducing poverty. About 14% of respondents in the UNFPA report said concerns about political or social situations, such as wars and pandemics, would lead or have already led to them having fewer children than they had wanted. And about 9% of respondents said concerns about climate change or environmental degradation would lead or had already led to them having fewer children than they had desired. Read more: Terrified of Climate Change? You Might Have Eco-Anxiety Violence and conflict have been on the rise around the globe in recent years. The period between 2021 and 2023 was the most violent since the end of the Cold War, according to the World Bank Group, and the numbers of both battle-deaths and violent conflicts have climbed over the past decade. That violence has contributed to years of rising displacement: More than 122 million people across the world have been forcibly displaced, the UN's refugee agency reported Thursday, nearly double the number recorded a decade ago. The impact of the global pandemic has been even more widely felt, and is unlikely to fade from anyone's memory any time soon as COVID-19 continues to spread, develop new variants, and take a toll on people whose recovery from the virus can take months, or even years. Even beyond COVID, outbreaks of infectious diseases are becoming more commonplace—and experts predict that, in the years ahead, the risk of those outbreaks escalating into epidemics and pandemics will only rise. In a 2024 UN Development Programme survey, which statistically represents about 87% of the global population, about 56% of respondents said they were thinking about climate change on a daily or weekly basis. About 53% of the respondents also said they were more concerned about climate change now than they were a year before. A third of respondents said that climate change is significantly affecting their major life decisions. 'I want children, but it's becoming more difficult as time passes by,' a 29-year-old woman from Mexico is quoted as saying in the report. 'It is impossible to buy or have affordable rent in my city. I also would not like to give birth to a child in war times and worsened planetary conditions if that means the baby would suffer because of it.' Contact us at letters@
