The Economy and Our Health

From Health Populi: insights on a new Philips Study.

Americans’ well-being is eroding due to the economy and stress, especially among women.

Key findings include:

1. People feel older, younger, hence the “35 is the new 40″ headline.
2. For 3 in 4 Americans, it’s the economy keeping them up at night.
3. We think we weigh less than we do. According to the Philips’ study, 6 in 10 Americans don’t feel they’re overweight. But the CDC says that 7 in 10 Americans are overweight.
4. The Internet is second after the doctor as the American’s #1 source for health information. In the 2004 survey, the #2 source was friends and family. (This is a contrast to Manhattan Research, which reports that the Internet actually surpassed physicians in 2009.)

Marketing take-aways:

• Despite the hoopla during the presidential campaign, hope and change are still meaningful communication messages for healthcare marketers. What better benefit can a hospital offer a cancer patient than hope? What more powerful promise can a hospital offer a weight loss surgery patient than positive, life-enriching change?
• But hope is not enough. Given the strains on everyone these days, results-driven strategies and messages are required for relevancy among audiences. In healthcare, for hope and change messages to be meaningful, we must back them up with solid proof points: your organization’s da Vinci technology for example, or your heart surgery team’s track record of positive outcomes.
• In this Great Recession, people are gravitating to products and services that will empower them, make them feel better—both short- and long-term. That’s one of the reasons the movie Avatar is on track to becoming the biggest grossing movie of all time. People want to leave their gray lives for awhile and surround themselves in a Utopia. (This is also why the board game Monopoly became so popular during the Great Depression.)

And if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed, fat and pessimistic about the state of the world, you can always watch this and feel better.