JWT Future-100_FINAL_COVER-HRFood + Drink, Beauty, Tech + Innovation, Retail, Lifestyle…JWT pulls out their crystal ball for 2016, and I see health, everywhere.

The Future 100 – Trends and Change to Watch in 2016 is J. Walter Thompson Intelligence Innovation Group’s annual trend forecast, which I highly value and mine each year to help THINK-Health continue to hone our own environmental analyses for health and healthcare. [Here’s what I wrote one year ago about JWT’s 2015 forecast].

Health is baked into JWT’s 2016 trendscape, well beyond their “Health” chapter.

Even the report’s introduction is health-flavored: “As forecasters, we’re watching the rapid metabolism of trends from food to beauty to tech as they move in a heartbeat from new to nearly new to over.”

In a nutshell, JWT finds that, “Wellbeing and future-proofing our bodies is also becoming nothing short of a global movement. As consumers, we’re investing in wearable tech, athleisure wear, wellness pursuits, mindfulness, buying farm-to-table, bean-to-bar, seed-to-skin, organic, fermented, probiotic, cold-pressed everything to ensure our continued good health….consumers are exchanging previously trusted products and brands for New Natural alternatives, from feminine care to fertility.”

Some of the high-level themes and insights impacting health/care in 2016 include:

  • Empathy
  • Un-tabooing womanhood
  • Online universities (think MOOCs for health education and peer-to-peer healthcare)
  • Self-healing materials
  • Organs-on-chips
  • Fashion+tech
  • Sportspitality (the new-new gym)
  • Neuromarketing (for behavior change)
  • Instagram stories (for peer-to-peer healthcare)
  • Ageless society
  • Natural junk (food)
  • New omnivores and flexitarian eating regimens
  • Algae as a sustainable food (if it can overcome the “ick” factor)
  • Ancient ingredients
  • Beauty foods (see my Health Populi post on Helena Rubinstein’s concept of food for beauty here)
  • New natural beauty
  • Metabolism boosters
  • Food temples in retail
  • Next-level geo-targeting (with public health implications)
  • Community stores
  • Sound healing
  • Stool banking
  • Gamethletes (THINK: games for health bolstering self-care and health efficacy)
  • and a host of Health-specific topics.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  Social determinants like food and housing and lifestyle directly and profoundly influence health more than healthcare services.

We know from our own project portfolio at THINK-Health the shift from healthcare to health that the health/care ecosystem is broadening well beyond the legacy healthcare players — hospitals, physicians, suppliers (especially pharma, biotech and medical devices). Look for collaborations and alliances between these organizations with trusted partners in food, technology, financial services, consumer electronics and retailers. The new-new pharmacy, in particular, will play an important bridging role in this expanding ecosystem.

2016 will usher in this new meaning of consumer-driven health/care.