Food & Wine Magazine Features Food-As-Medicine: Good for People, Good for the (Local) Economy
When the mainstream media food magazine Food & Wine devotes a long article to the concept of food-as-medicine, it calls to me….loudly. Here’s another proof-point for tying together public and individual health while boosting local economies. F&W featured Stacey Leasca’s essay, What Happens When Doctors Start Prescribing Food Instead of Pills?, online this month, and Stacey did her homework. One of Stacey’s go-to evidence-based resources for her column was the recently-released Rockefeller Foundation report, From Farm to FIM: The Economic Impact of Local Food is Medicine. The Foundation studied several local
Consumers Using AI for Health — Especially Motivated When People Lack Access to Care
Peoples’ use of AI for researching health information and supporting mental health appears to trump consumers’ trust in the technology, based on the March 2026 Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust. Similar to the recent Rock Health consumer survey on AI adoption (discussed in Health Populi earlier this week), about 1 in 3 U.S. adults have used AI for health information in the past year for either physical or mental health queries. There are many studies gauging consumers’ use of AI in health care, but
Consumer Adoption of AI for Health and Self-Care – Doubling to 36% in a Year, Via Rock Health’s Latest Snapshot
From pre- and self-diagnosis of symptoms to prescription drug treatments and ongoing care, millions of U.S. consumers have used AI chatbots for health and wellness according to the consumer health adoption survey from Rock Health. The report was published in late March 2026, with AI-focused data from the consumer survey fielded in December 2025. In just one year from 2024 to 2025, consumers’ use of AI chatbots for health information doubled from 16% of people to 32%. The most popular brand of AI for health information seeking was ChatGPT (owned by OpenAI, with whom
The “Five-Month” Cognitive Penalty of Financial Decline: A Significant Loss of Financial Well-Being Correlates with About Five Months of Cognitive Decline A Year
Lower financial well-being and worsening financial conditions have been linked to declining brain function, according to new research from a team at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. The research, Changes in financial well-being and memory function and decline in middle-aged and older adults, was published this month in the American Journal of Epidemiology. “Worse financial well-being in midlife and older age — and especially declines over time — are associated with lower memory scores and faster cognitive decline,” the study notes — among the first to scrutinize the relationship between brain
Healthcare AI Direct-to-Consumer: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once
The announcements of consumer-focused AI for health are coming Fast and Furious. As we are coming off of the 2026 Oscars broadcast, it inspires me to quote another movie title, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. In the moment, it feels like consumer health-focused AI is indeed in a fast-and-furious launch phase. It’s time for me to provide an update on this fast-moving-consumer service, discussing the latest vendor announcements and the ongoing concerned embrace of AI among early adopting citizen-users of AI for health/care. For context, let’s start with long-time AI-medical expert Dr. Eric Topol’s view on the current state. Registering
Self-Rationing Health Care in America – 1 in 2 Americans Earning As Much as $180,000 Have Postponed a Life Event Due to Healthcare Costs
Americans’ ability to pay for health care has eroded in the past several years, with 1 in 3 people trading off life experiences, eating a meal, or driving less to cover healthcare expenses. These are some of the findings revealed by The West Health-Gallup Affordability Index published 12 March. What struck me was the rate of life event-postponement done by consumers earning relatively high incomes. One-half of Americans earning between $120,000 and $180,000 postponed a life event in the past four years due to healthcare costs. One in four Americans earning over
Consumers Are Ahead of Consumer Health Innovation: Insights from IQVIA
As patients in the U.S. bear more costs out-of-pocket, from deductibles to co-sharing the price of higher-cost specialty drugs (say for cancers, Parkinson’s, and so on), health care looks and feels more like a retail transaction stretching peoples’ health consumer muscles. A new report from IQVIA, whom you probably know through their data collection and analysis in the prescription drug sector, forecasts Consumer Health’s Next Phase, with the observation that the market is changing faster than its narratives (the subtitle of the report). To come to this judgment, IQVIA analyzes six trends shaping the
“Will Work For Health Care:” Americans Trading Off Wages For Healthcare (Again)
Many people living in America who receive health benefits at the workplace traded off wage growth for health insurance coverage, a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York published this week. For those of us working in the health economics and policy space since the 1990s, the Fed team gave me a strong sense of déjà vu. The bar graph cited in the report explains the math behind the wage/health plan trade-off. “Among those businesses experiencing an increase in employee health insurance costs, the average wage increase over
Thank you Aaron Strout for hosting our conversation on the Reaching Higher Podcast, now live on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. We covered a lot of ground addressing health care and health citizenship, the growing prospects for our homes as our health hubs, and how our humanity is a key ingredient in health-making for all.
I'm grateful to be part of the Duke Corporate Education faculty, sharing perspectives on the future of health care with health and life science companies. Once again, I'll be brainstorming the future of health care with a cohort of executives working in a global pharmaceutical company.
Jane joined host Dr. Geeta "Dr. G" Nayyar and colleagues to brainstorm the value of vaccines for public and individual health in this challenging environment for health literacy, health politics, and health citizen grievance. Click onto the Pfizer Value of Vaccines site and you can watch four episodes covering the challenges with adult vaccination, the employer and health plan member's journey to vaccination, reimbursement, and collaborating for proactive prevention.