A blog covering the health/care ecosystem and people.

Wherever you live in the world touched by the coronavirus pandemic, you felt (and were) stress-tested. Both you were, and your home was as well. In this year’s 2021 annual report by Deloitte into Connectivity & Mobile Trends, their report details How the pandemic has stress-tested the crowded digital home. This analysis was done, as it is every year, by the Deloitte Center for Technology, Media & Telecommunications. Deloitte’s Center commissioned an online survey among 2,009 U.S. consumers to gauge five generations of peoples’ perspectives on connected life in the context of COVID. The report covers the various life-flows of

The emergence of the COVID-19 vaccine “infodemic” has slowed the ability for nations around the world to emerge out of the public health crisis. Growing cynicism among some health citizens facing the politicization of public health tactics like vaccines and facial masks is what we’re talking about. At the root is peoples’ lack of trust across a range of information providers, including government, media, business, and even peers. The 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer spotlighted the infodemic and eroding trust in the U.S. in the voices of public health, the public sector, and media. This is a global challenge as well,

As vaccinations jabbed into peoples’ arms in the U.S. continue to immunize health citizens from contracting the coronavirus, millions of folks are looking forward to getting back inside restaurants to enjoy meals out, as well as un-masking when grocery shopping. But people in the U.S. love their food both outside and inside the home: about one-half of people in the U.S. are continuing to cook at home more, according to the 2021 Food & Health Survey published today by the International Food Information Council (IFIC). This sixteenth annual report is a go-to for those of us in the health/care ecosystem who

Most people in the U.S. who have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot have a welcoming side-effect: peace of mind and mental health, according to a survey conducted by Walgreens in April 2021. Three in four people said that getting vaccinated positively impacted their mental health, feeling some kind of relief, thankfulness, or optimism, among other sentiments. Walgreens conducted the poll online among 1,500 U.S. adults over 18 years of age between April 19 and 21st, 2021. The activities people are most excited to do once vaccinated with full immunity are to see family and friends (among 60% of

Health care has increased its role in popular culture over the years. In movies in particular, we’ve seen health care costs and hassles play featured in plotlines in As Good as it Gets [theme: health insurance coverage], M*A*S*H [war and its medical impacts are hell], and Philadelphia [HIV/AIDS in the era of The Band Played On], among dozens of others. And this year’s Oscar winner for leading actor, Anthony Hopkins, played The Father, who with his family is dealing with dementia. [The film, by the way, garnered six nominations and won two]. When I say “Oscar” here on the Health

Our feet have become an important health focus during the pandemic, as the importance of exercise-as-medicine and mental health helper has looked to walking, running, and biking as good-for-us physical activities. The Mayo Clinic published an informative piece on Feet and the COVID-19 Pandemic, and the Cleveland Clinic posted advice on exercising during the pandemic earlier this month with the strong recommendation of walking. So it makes sense that the apparel category whose brand equity grew most between 2020 and 2021 was footwear, announced in the Brand Finance Apparel 50. Each year, Brand Finance evaluates the value of “brands,” as

Springtime is finally emerging on the east coast of the U.S. and my local CSA farm is on my mind. It’s timely, then, to re-visit a research paper on subsidizing fruits and vegetables from a March 2019 issue of PLOS as an introduction to a new initiative growing out of The Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School (CHLPI) on produce prescriptions. Timely, too, that Chef José Andrés has been called to President Biden’s White House to help address food security in America. First, let’s look at the research in PLOS: Cost-effectiveness of financial incentives for

A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, most Americans are still in “survival mode,” according to an update of the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer, Trust and the Coronavirus in the U.S. Updating the company’s annual Trust Barometer, Edelman conducted a new round of interviews in the U.S. among 2,500 people in early March. [For context, you can read my take on the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer published during the World Economic Forum in January 2021 here in Health Populi].  The first chart shows that two in three people in the U.S. are still in a pandemic mindset, worried about safety and

After a year of living with and “in” the coronavirus pandemic, younger people in the U.S. have had to deal with over twelve months of quarantine and lockdown, going to school remotely from home, and distancing from friends. For most young people, the public health crisis has been more about that social distancing from friends, a collective sense of isolation, and mental and behavioral health impacts. These dynamics and these young health citizens’ coping mechanisms are captured in the report, Coping with COVID-19: How Young People Use Digital Media to Manage Their Mental Health. Three organizations collaborated to conduct and

More Americans are happier in March 2021 than they’ve been for a year, based on consumer research from Civic Science polling U.S. adults in early March 2021. For the first time, a larger percent of Americans said they were better off financially since the start of the pandemic. This week, Civic Science shared their latest data on what they’re seeing beyond the coronavirus quarantine era to forecast trends that will shape a post-COVID America. Buoying peoples’ growing optimism was the expectation of the passage of the American Cares Act, which President Biden signed into effect yesterday. The HPA-CS Economic Sentiment Index

The coronavirus pandemic accelerated digital transformation of organizations, including health care providers. But another patient side-effect of COVID-19 has been the digital transformation of many patients, documented by data gathered by Rock Health and Stanford Center for Digital Health and analyzed in their latest report explaining how the public health crisis accelerated digital health “beyond its years,” noted in the title of the report. Rock Health and Stanford commissioned an online survey among 7,980 U.S. adults from early September to early October 2020 to gauge peoples’ interest in and utilization of digital health tools and telehealth. Rock Health has conducted a consumer digital

At the start of CES 2021, I had the opportunity to catch up with Karsten Russell-Wood, Portfolio Marketing Leader, Post Acute & Home, Connected Care at Philips. We brainstormed just as CES 2021 was going to “open,” virtually, for the consumer electronics conference’s first all-virtual meeting. Philips, a longtime major exhibitor at CES, created an entirely new online experience for the CES attendees – a sort of virtual gallery of different exhibits that are accessed from a single point in a “room” with various entry points. One of the company’s key messages for CES 2021 was health care delivered outside

On U.S. Election Night, November 3, 2020, CNN’s John King stood in front of the “Key Race Alert” screen, announcing state-by-state polling results with the oft-used headline, “Too Early To Call.” That persistent media-moment was stressful for the millions of voters watching the multiple hairline-close battles from state to state. Then there was that company logo strategically placed at the lower left corner of the screen, as in “Brought to you by Calm.” Calm is but one of a growing portfolio of tools that health citizens can use to manage anxiety and stress, get to sleep (and stay sleeping), and

The coronavirus pandemic disrupted and re-shaped the annual CES across so many respects — the meeting of thousands making up the global consumer tech community “met” virtually, both keynote and education sessions were pre-recorded, and the lovely serendipity of learning and meeting new concepts and contacts wasn’t so straightforward. But for those of us working with and innovating solutions for health and health care, #CES2021 was baked with health goodness, in and beyond “digital health” categories. In my consumer-facing health care work, I’ve adopted the mantra that our homes are our health hubs. Reflecting on my many conversations during CES

The pandemic has digitally transformed those people who could work from home, school at home, and undertake daily life-flows as health citizens tried to keep the coronavirus (and other people) at-a-distance. “Emerging hand-in-hand with place displacement, activity displacement is simply about the change in how people do things. Almost overnight, school lessons and doctors’ appointments were online. Yoga classes, concerts and weddings were streamed via Zoom,” Fjord Trends 2021 from Accenture Interactive observes. “Historically, people have often been quick to adopt new digital technology and slower to adapt to what it can help them achieve,” Fjord noted. But COVID-19 has

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic drove U.S. consumers to increase spending on electronics, notably laptops, smartphones, and desktop computers. But the coronavirus era also saw broadband households spending more on connecting health devices, with 42% of U.S. consumers owning digital health tech compared with 33% in 2015, according to research discussed in Supporting Today’s Connected Consumer from Parks Associates. developed for Sutherland, the digital transformation company. Consumer electronics purchase growth was, “likely driven by new social distancing guidelines brought on by COVID-19, which requires many individuals to work and attend school from home. Among the 26% of US broadband households

In numerology, the symbolic meaning behind the number “21” is death and re-birth. In tarot cards, 21 is a promise of fulfillment, triumph, and victory. How apropos that feels right now as we say goodbye and good riddance to 2020 and turn the page for a kinder, gentler, healthier New Year. It would be sinful to enter a New Year as challenging as 2021 promises to be without taking the many lessons of our 2020 pandemic life and pain into account. For health care in America, it is a time to re-build and re-imagine a better, more equitable landscape for

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, women have experienced more than the direct physical, clinical impact of COVID-19: beyond “lives,” women’s livelihoods, financial health and emotional well-being have been hard-hit. This is true on both a global basis as well as in the United States. In that context, last week I engaged in a fascinating conversation with Varsha Rao, CEO of Nurx, to discuss the current state of women and health/care in America, and some thoughts about the future. If you’ve had the TV on sometime since March 2020, one of many millions of people in the U.S. spending

Most psychologists in the U.S. treated more patients in the first six months of the coronavirus pandemic, shifting their practices to telehealth platforms. These therapists got more referrals and saw fewer cancellations, and one-third treated patients who lived in a different state from their practice site, according to Patients with Depression and Anxiety Surge as Psychologists Respond to the Coronavirus Pandemic from the American Psychological Association (APA). For this study, APA polled 1,787 licensed psychologists (both members and non-members in the Association) in the U.S. between late August and early October 2020. This year, APA has published four reports on

“If you build it, he will come,” the voice of James Earl Jones echoes in our minds when we recall the plotline of the film, Field of Dreams. A quick summary if you don’t know the movie: the “it” was a baseball field to be built in a rural cornfield. The “he” was a baseball player, ultimately joined by a dream-team of ball players who would convene on that dreamy field to play an amazing game. Today, the day after Pfizer announced a 90% benefit for its coronavirus vaccine, bolstering Wall Street returns on 9th November 2020, two new consumer

One in two U.S. adults say their concerns about personal health and wellness increased in the past year: in particular, stress and anxiety, and sleep and eating habits. Despite spending more time at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, few people believe they live in a “healthy home.” The vast majority of consumers are concerned about some aspect of their home’s health, like air or water quality, according to Healthy Home Technologies , a report published in October 2020 by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), convener of the annual CES. For the research, CES interviewed 1,500 U.S. adults in late

It is said that a picture tells a thousand words. This picture tells an even quicker story that can save lives: “Masks work.” The backstory: Kansas Governor Laura Kelly issued a mask mandate on July 2, 2020. The rationale: That was two days before Independence Day, the holiday weekend when she and state public health officials anticipated health citizens would abandon their personal efforts to physically distance and cover faces to avoid contracting or spreading the coronavirus. This was the message directly communicated to U.S. residents by the White House Coronavirus Task Force that week before Independence Day. The backlash: 

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed the importance of connectivity, WiFi, broadband, as a social determinant of health and living. Connecting from our homes — now our health hubs, workplaces, schools, entertainment centers, and gyms — is necessary like air and water for survival across daily life flows. Digital connectivity can ameliorate social isolation and anxiety, bolster mental health, and access needed medical care via telehealth channels. As a result of the pandemic, staying connected is more important than ever for older people, Best Buy Health learned in a survey of U.S. adults. Insights from this study have informed the launch

“This surge of people experiencing acute behavioral health problems…has the potential to further impact the healthcare system for years to come,” a report from McKinsey expects looking at the hidden costs of COVID-19’s impact on U.S. health care. The coronavirus pandemic has taken a toll on Americans’ mental health, with anxiety and depression growing as a side-effect to worries about the virus itself, the long Great Lockdown in much of the country, and the economic recession that has particularly impacted women and people of color. I covered depression impacts due to COVID-19 here in Health Populi yesterday, and wanted to

The COVID-19 pandemic hastened digital transformation for both the health care industry and for individuals — as health consumers, patients, caregivers, and health citizens. Two new reports from Accenture update our understanding of the changed health consumer in the context of both “home: and the health care ecosystem. These reports are Accenture’s annual Digital Health Technology Vision 2020, and an analysis of the firm’s Wave 7 of consumer research, answering the question, How will COVID-19 change the consumer? The 2020 tech vision for health is summarized here, tying to Accenture’s previous two years of forecasts. This year, the five pillars

Welcome to Day 2 of my #COVID19 holiday break, welcome to my ABCovid Journal, letters “F” through “J. If you hadn’t tuned into the Health Populi blog yesterday, 10th August 2020, you missed the first five letters of my Age of Corona alphabet, curated in my art journal created in the early weeks of the pandemic. Click the link to back-track and catch up with us… I should explain why I’m sharing this project in the Health Populi blog this week. Last month, long-time colleague and friend Colin Hung interviewed me on the #HITMC broadcast to discuss a lovely recognition

Pass me the Clorox…tip the UPS driver…love thy grocer. These are our daily life-flows in the Age of COVID-19. Our basic needs are reflected in the new 2020 Axios-Harris Poll, released today. For the past several years, I’ve covered the Harris Poll of companies’ reputation rankings here in Health Populi. Last year, Wegmans, the grocer, ranked #1; Amazon, #2. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. consumers’ basic needs are emerging as health and hygiene, food, and technology, based on the new Axios-Harris Poll on the top 100 companies. This year’s study was conducted in four waves, with the

Advertising Age announced their list of the top 20 brands in 2020 this week. Ad Age’s lens on these was heavily tinted by consumers’ lives coping with the coronavirus pandemic: “The coronavirus has brought new attention to typically boring, decades-old consumer staples, while hastening the rise of digital newcomers that were only just beginning to gain traction pre-pandemic,” Ad Age explains in the introduction to the list of the selected brands. As the editors of the MadMen-and-Women’s most influential industry publication, they explain, “Ad Age chronicles 20 brands that are having a moment.” This moment to them as well as

The barbershop and beauty salon are important community touch points for health, wellness, and social connection in so many peoples’ lives. In my book, HealthConsuming: From Health Consumer to Health Citizen, I feature the black barbershop to introduce a chapter on “The New Retail Health.” In the COVID-19 pandemic, how we’re dealing with hair is a metaphor for personal control, for political statements, for mental health, and for overall well-being. Check out Geoff Coates’ (known as Sadochicken, from Vancouver) take on “how quarantine hairdos are lookin’,” here. Can you see yourself? I can (it’s the “Corona Bangs” style for me,

This week, Hims & Hers announced they would be a new consumer-facing retail channel for coronavirus testing. You can order the test here for $150 cash out-of-pocket. The packaging states that this is a saliva test, “to detect current presence of COVID-19.” The fine print on the Hims website states: This test has been authorized by the FDA under an Emergency Use Authorization for use by authorized laboratories. This test has not been FDA cleared or approved. This test has been authorized only for the detection of nucleic acid from SARS-CoV-2, not for any other viruses or pathogens. This test

On Monday, 6th April 2020, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, has determined that the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are essential workers in our age of the coronavirus pandemic. The PM has posted an Easter egg coloring project on her Facebook page to support children (and people like me who like to color) in the #StayHome era. In the U.S., the day before on Sunday 7th April, Dr. Deborah Birx advised Americans that, “The next two weeks are extraordinarily important. This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the

There’s evidence in this week’s JAMA of a dose-response relationship between peoples’ steps and lower mortality. In other words: more steps done daily is statistically significantly associated with death from all causes. Furthermore, step intensity didn’t make a difference in mortality rates, shown in the JAMA-published study, Association of Daily Step Count and Step Intensity With Mortality Among US Adults. The publication of this study is incredibly well-timed given the fact that hundreds of millions of people around the world are in lockdown, #StayHome lifestyles this week, and will be for many weeks to come. Going outside for fresh air

One in two Americans trust the Centers for Disease Control for the facts on the coronavirus pandemic, and 43% trust the World Health Organization. But there’s a huge trust deficit when it comes to trusting President Donald Trump on the facts about COVID-19, a poll from Morning Consult and The Hollywood Reporter found. 2,200 U.S. adults were surveyed between 12 and 15 March 2020 on the coronavirus pandemic and their perspectives on the media and political leaders’ information credibility. For news on the pandemic, only one in five Americans believed the President and 18%, the Vice President, Mike Pence, followed

Anne Case and Angus Deaton were working in a cabin in Montana the summer of 2014. Upon analyzing mortality data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, they noticed that death rates were rising among middle-aged white people. “We must have hit a wrong key,” they note in the introduction of their book, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. This reversal of life span in America ran counter to a decades-long trend of lower mortality in the U.S., a 20th century accomplishment, Case and Deaton recount. In the 300 pages that follow, the researchers deeply dive into and

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), collaborating with industry stakeholders, has ushered in a standard for artificial intelligence in health care.   CTA is the membership organization for companies that innovate, manufacture and market consumer-facing tech like big-screen TVs, slick new autos, video games and voice assistants. So what’s an organization like CTA doing with AI and health care? Let me connect the dots. Check out this graphic taken from my book, HealthConsuming: From Health Consumer to Health Citizen. This shows the ten categories of tech I revisit each year at CES, CTA’s annual mega-conference of new-new things in consumer electronics

The topline of this year’s annual Gallup Poll into honesty and ethics of professions finds nurses sustaining their reign as the top trusted profession in America. But it’s also important to point out that four of the top five most ethical professions are people working on the front lines of health care: doctors (#3), pharmacists (#4) and dentists (#5). Engineers rank second this year after nurses, edging ahead of doctors and pharmacists who typically have ranked 2nd and 3rd each year in the past decade. One of these years, pharmacists’ reputation fell as the profession was associated with being a

In CTA’s 2020 Consumer Tech Forecast launched yesterday at Media Day 1 at CES, Steve Koenig VP of Research, said that, “digital health is an ecosystem of ecosystems.” Health, medical and wellness trends featured large in the forecast, which brought together key trends for 5G, robotics, voice tech, AR/VR/XR, and the next iteration of IoT — which Steve said will still be called “IoT,” but in this phase will morph into the “Intelligence of Things.” That speaks to Steve’s phrase, “ecosystem of ecosystems,” because that’s not just “digital” health — that’s now the true nature of health/care, and what is

Next week, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) will convene CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, where over 180,000 tech-minded people from around the world will convene to kick the tires on new TVs, games, smart home devices, 5G connections, 3-D printing, drones, and to be sure, digital health innovations. At #CES2020, exhibitors in the health/care ecosystem will go well beyond wearable devices for tracking steps and heart rate. I’ll be meeting with wearable tech innovators along with consumer electronics companies and retailers. I’ve also scheduled get-togethers with pharma and life science folks, health plan people, and execs from consumer health companies.

While customer satisfaction with health insurance plans slightly increased between 2018 and 2019, patient satisfaction with hospitals fell in all three settings where care is delivered — inpatient, outpatient, and the emergency room, according to the 2018-2019 ACSI Finance, Insurance and Health Care Report. ACSI polls about 300,000 U.S. consumers each year to gauge satisfaction with over 400 companies in 46 industries. For historic trends, you can check out my coverage of the 2014 version of this study here in Health Populi. The 2019 ACSI report bundles finance/banks, insurance (property/casualty, life and health) and hospitals together in one document. Health

“What’s the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being?” asks a report from the World Health Organization‘s Europe region team (WHO-Europe). There’s a lot of proof supporting arts-as-medicine, WHO details in this paper, which synthesizes research published in over 3,000 studies. The first chart illustrates the logic model that bridges arts to health in three segments: “Components” of arts programs, including but not limited to cognitive stimulation (e.g., learning a new arts skill such as painting, drawing or journaling), social interaction (e.g., participating in theatre), physical activity (e.g., dance), and evocation of emotion (e.g., listening

Health and our health information are deeply personal. Changing health care and inspiring positive health behaviors is hard to do. But we must and we will, a group of inspiring and inspired people who work across the health/care ecosystem affirmed this week in Dallas at the conference of Medecision Liberation 2019. I was engaged at this conference to wear several hats — as a keynote speaker, a sort of “emcee,” and, finally, to trend-weave the many talks and discussions happening throughout the meeting. This post is my synthesis of the summary I delivered live at the end of the conference,

SelfCare is health/care, particularly as patients, everyday people, take on greater responsibility for clinical decisions and paying for medical services. We’re convening today through Sunday in Indianapolis with GMDC, the Global Market Development Center and Retail Tomorrow to brainstorm the current and future prospects for SelfCare, health and wellness in the hands, hearts, and homes of consumers. To bolster the message and engage with industry stakeholders, GMDC collaborated with the Hamacher Resource Group to develop a SelfCare Roadmap, an interactive tool that provides insights into twelve conditions where consumers typically looking to DIY their health using over-the-counter medicines, supplies and

August 8 is National CBD Day. Who knew? Well, now you do, and I’m going to explain how this three-letter-acronym is rolling into the retail health landscape, opportunities, risks, and other issues I like to cover when forecasting the future of a new-new thing in health/care. “CBD” stands for cannabidiol, which is a derivative of cannabis, marijuana and hemp plants. CBD is the non-psychoactive compound derived from cannabis plants. CBD is being fast-adopted by consumers in retail and regulated shopping channels. One in seven Americans (14%) use CBD products, according to Gallup‘s new well-being research. One-third of U.S. consumers weren’t

Today is July 15, and my email in-box is flooded with all flavors of Amazon Prime’d stories in newsletters and product info from ecommerce sites — even those outside of Amazon from beauty retailers, electronics channels, and grocery stores. So I ask on what will probably be among the top ecommerce revenue generating days of all time: “What could health care look like when Amazon Prime’d?” I ask and answer this in my book, HealthConsuming, as chapter 3. For context, this chapter follows two that explain how patients in the U.S. have been morphing into health consumers based on how health

In reading the July/August issue of Eating Well magazine this week, I came across this ad which I scanned for you to see yourself: “We believe in food as medicine.” Signed, Kroger Health. Here’s the introductory text in the full-page ad: “As Kroger Health, our vision is to help people live healthier lives. And now, more than ever, through our experts, innovation, and technology, we’re uniquely positioned to bring that vision to life,” the copy read. “We know food,” the text continued, as part of The Kroger Co. which is the largest grocery chain in the U.S. celebrating 135 years

There are many forms of magic inspired by Disney, the company. There’s the obvious attraction, the Magic Kingdom, that was Walt’s original destination vision, “imagineered” in 1932. Then there are other kinds of magic. The one I’m deep into in the moment is inspiration, ideation, and “reimagineering” my own thinking about work, legacy, and social justice. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to spend much of this week at the inaugural Disney Institute Women’s Leadership Summit. The Institute convened about 300 women (and a handful of brave “He-for-She” men keen on diversity) in Orlando to learn about and brainstorm

Most U.S. healthcare providers are spending more time, effort and capital with an eye to engaging with patients-as-consumers, a trend quantified in the report, the 2019 State of Consumerism in Healthcare: The Bar is Rising from Kaufman Hall, summarizing results from this year’s healthcare consumerism index survey conducted among about 200 healthcare providers. “Legacy organizations will need premier-level consumer capabilities to compete in today’s increasingly consumer-centric environment,” Kaufman Hall recommends. Providers identified the key capability gaps for consumer-centric care as improving the consumer experience, offering a variety of facility-based access points, utilizing digital tools for health engagement, providing price transparency,

Over the ten years between 2007 and 2017, U.S. consumer spending for education, food and health care substantially grew, crowding out spending for other categories like transportation and housing. Furthermore, income disparity between wealthy Americans and people earning lower-incomes dramatically widened: between 2007-2017, income for high-income earners grew 1,305 percent more than lower-incomes. These two statistics set the kitchen table for spending in and beyond 2019, particularly for younger people living in America, considered in  Deloitte’s report, The consumer is changing, but perhaps not how you think. The authors are part of Deloitte Consulting’s Retail team. The retail spending data

Pharmaceutical company executives are testifying in the U.S. Congress this week on the topic of prescription drug costs. One of those medicines, insulin, cost a patient $5,705 for a year’s supply in 2016, double what it cost in 2012, according to the Health Care Cost Institute. Know that one of these insulin products, Lilly’s Humalog,  came onto the market in 1996. In typical markets, as products mature and get mass adoption, prices fall. Not so insulin, one of the many cost components in caring for diabetes. But then prescription drug pricing doesn’t conform with how typical markets work in theory.