Survey: 57% of US women and 47% of men ages 18 to 29 say they get health and wellness information from influencers; women say they see such content more often
Although health providers are the most common place Americans turn for information about their health, social media influencers and podcasts also play a major role.
Context & Ripple Effects
Earlier Pew coverage found that roughly half of adults under 50 use influencers or podcasts for health information, with health influencers concentrated on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. The new age-and-gender split shows this behavior is especially embedded among adults 18 to 29, and more prevalent among young women.
It also fits a longer Pew-documented shift in which social platforms and creators have become recurring information channels, first prominently for news and now for health and wellness.
First-order effects
- Health and wellness creators are a significant information source for young adults, reaching a reported 57% of women and 47% of men ages 18 to 29.
- Health providers remain the leading source, but their information environment now includes influencer and podcast content that many younger patients encounter alongside professional guidance.
Second-order effects
- Platforms with established health-creator audiences—especially Instagram, TikTok and YouTube in the earlier survey—have greater incentive to retain and surface wellness content, while creators gain leverage as intermediaries between audiences and health-information sources.
- The gender gap means health communicators and brands seeking young audiences may need different creator, format and distribution choices for women and men rather than treating the cohort as uniform.
Third-order effects
- If creator-led health discovery continues to normalize, health communication will become more dependent on platform distribution and individual messengers, not solely providers and institutional publishers.
- That shift raises a durable tension between the reach of creator-led information and the need for reliable health guidance; the survey establishes audience exposure, not whether the information received is accurate or changes care decisions.
The trend: Health information is following news into a creator-mediated, platform-distributed model, with young adults—particularly women—at the leading edge.