When it comes to health, the words “fiscal” and “physical” are morphing as peoples’ economic feelings (the “fiscal”) are shaping physical and emotional health, we find in U.S. consumer data presented by John Dick, Founder and CEO of CivicScience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Consumer Technology Association convened a special session with John, who painted a portrait of the U.S. consumer at a point in time — late April 2025 — reminding us more than once during the hourlong session that, “Everything is constantly changing.”

One certainty that we can be sure of, in the dismal-scientist way of my economists-brethren, is that the economic sentiment index among U.S. adults has been on the downturn since November 2024. In this instance, the “constant change” is downward and to the right as diagrammed in the first graphic from CivicScience’s data.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the mental health front, there’s a parallel free-fall happening since November 2024, illustrated in the second graph: that is for changes in Americans’ emotional well-being, which dropped a low in February 2025….rebounding a bit in the past month.

But John warned that this feels like a COVID déjà vu of fear and anxiety….with emotional wellbeing predictive (or a precursor) to shifts in consumer behavior. So while the slight rebounding in consumer financial health was probably due to cooling inflation, tax refunds, and relatively strong wages, this past is probably not prologue to a sustaining up-and-to-the-right rebound.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In reading these datapoints, it’s crucial to remind ourselves that there are millions of people underneath the averages: in this case, it’s important to check into changes in emotional well-being by race/ethnicity, because there are important differences. Here, we learn that the biggest drop in emotional well-being happened among Hispanic consumers in the first quarter of 2025, with White consumers’ sentiment declining by just over 1 percentage point, and Black consumers’ well-being falling by a percentage point as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Lots of people don’t even want to leave the house right now,” John observed: see the green line designating an increase in the percent of people disinterested in leaving the house. That number sharply increased to 32% of U.S. consumers as of April 25, 2025.

“This is about as COVID déjà vu as you can get,” John reiterated, channeling the post-pandemic trauma impact many people are still feeling, even after five years passing since the pandemic was labeled as such.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While spring perennially brings people out of houses and into nature and outside activities, consumers who stayed home more than usual in late April 2025 had a general preference to stay home overall, and another half staying home owing to gas prices or other financial reasons.

Note that 39% said it was mental well-being that prevented them from going out, and another cited health concerns. The bottom two reasons were also concerning, novel and a sign of our current times: that is that 16% of stay-at-homes did so because of political concerns and 85 due to ICE raids (that is, concerns about potential threats for forced deportation). Adding in other factors such as crime/safety concerns and travel/crowd concerns, these stay-at-home forces fall under broader anxiety and stress umbrella.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  John also discussed consumers’ views on tariffs, which are contributing to a trend among some consumer shoppers who are choosing to buy “upfront” in advance of potential shortages or price increases for goods, or both (“panic buying”).

This bar chart called out to me when I looked at the yellow bar for the 37% of consumers who have stockpiled medical supplies and over-the-counter medications in the past 30 days (data from Feb 24-27 2025).

A study released this week conducted by Ernst & Young on behalf of PhRMA, the prescription drug industry group), calculated that U.S. pharma tariffs would raise U.S. drug costs by $51 billion a year. That’s because the U.S. imported over $200 billion worth of pharmaceutical products in 2023, three-fourths of which come from Europe (think: Ireland, Germany, Switzerland). That was about one-half of all pharma sales in the U.S. in 2023.

We can see a rise of fiscal-physical-mental health stressors among U.S. consumers shaping peoples’ daily lives as we enter the middle of the second quarter of 2025. Tariffs will further exacerbate U.S. consumers’ financial stress, an impact that will have knock-on toxic or otherwise negative side-effects on patients and families dealing with chronic conditions and facing medical bills, reinforcing the unhealthy vicious cycle of fiscal/physical health risks.