Five Predictions for Healthcare Communications in 2026
So, this is Christmas… another year over and we are curious about what 2026 will bring for us health communicators. As well as wondering why work that could perfectly well have been started in September and wasn’t, now absolutely needs to be delivered by ‘end of the year’. Anyway, amongst all that fun, the Curious Health team has once again pulled out the old crystal ball to make five predictions we think you need to know about.
A review of last year’s predictions show’s we’re actually quite good at this. So, find 10 minutes in between scheduling another urgent meeting for December and anticipating the RFP that will land on 22nd December for a 5th January pitch, and take a look.
The rise of ‘Health Autonomists’
With the rise of biometric tracking, AI-driven insights, and consumer wellness technologies, individuals are increasingly managing their own health outside traditional medical systems. This shift marks the emergence of the ‘Health Autonomist’; a new kind of patient who uses self-generated data and digital tools to make independent health decisions.
Devices and apps from companies like Apple and Google are generating insights that consumers trust. McKinsey reports that around 20% of UK and US consumers already use biometric data to guide personalised product choices. Soho Farmhouse’s Lazy Lab offers diagnostic testing for energy, metabolism and hormone health, plus genetic profiling to improve ‘recovery performance and health optimisation’.
Wealthier consumers are willing to pay to fast-track solutions to health issues, rather than navigate increasingly overwhelmed healthcare systems. This trend is evident in the popularity of weight-loss drugs like GLP-1 agonists. The demand for which is driving a DTC model, with regulators playing catch up with the online pharmacies and wellness sites fulfilling the demand.
The implications for health communicators in 2026 are two-fold:
- For the Health Autonomists who embrace the benefits of personalised healthcare they can access directly, it is vital that they are making decisions based on clear, evidence-based and balanced information. Companies in this space need to work with communicators who understand the need to build shareholder value, while maintaining standards of evidence and claims required in the pharma and biotech sectors
- Health communicators will also need to consider how this increasing two-tier healthcare system is going to impact those vulnerable to health inequities. We need to take the principles of ‘knowledge is power’ to create accessible content and information to help everyone take action to improve health.
The Dead Internet Theory becomes reality
The AI boom has rapidly accelerated content development – and its quality has improved massively. If you’ve scrolled socials this year, you’ve probably seen your share of AI-created content. 2025 has been the year of the infamous Italian brainrot videos, when Sora got really good at hyper-realistic videos, and where many of us were duped by the Buckingham Palace Christmas Market. These moments aren’t just quirky internet lore; they signal something bigger.
Once relegated to the conspiracy theory world of 4chan, we’re predicting (adjusts tin foil hat) that the Dead Internet theory risks becoming reality in 2026. A quick explainer for those not chronically online: the Dead Internet theory asserts that authentic human activity on the internet has been displaced by AI and algorithmically-curated search results, and that this is being done as a way to manipulate audiences. Sound familiar?
And the numbers back it up. Research published in October found that 52% of online articles are now written by AI (where >50% of an article’s content was identified as written by AI), and approximately 71% of images shared on social media are AI-created, reshaping how we understand the world online and off. Our feeds are also affected, with AI-powered recommendations driving over 80% of content discovery on socials, increasing user time on apps.
Survey data revealed that about 3 in 4 consumers would want to know when AI is being used in content creation, either in whole or in part. The same survey showed that when being used to develop factual, non-fiction content, almost 1 in 2 respondents would not trust AI to be used. And when it comes to spotting AI? Consumers were only able to correctly identify AI-created images and text 40% of the time. With recent advancements, such as updates to Google’s Nano Banana Pro, this is likely to be even less.
What does this mean for the industry? As your health comms Sarah Connors, we’ve got a few suggestions to help you fight back:
- Get real. When trust is the new currency, it’s not about being perfectly polished. Lean into content that feels more human, raw, and authentic.
- Signal trust – fast. What’s your first impression? Does it signal credibility?
- Play the long-game. Work to ‘vaccinate’ audiences against misinformation before it takes hold.
In the face of US trade policies, value messaging will define the UK pharma market’s next chapter
The UK pharmaceutical sector is heading into 2026 at a pivotal moment. Global trade policies and domestic pricing reforms are constantly shaping the competitive landscape. The recent landmark UK-US trade agreement now locks zero tariffs on UK pharmaceutical exports to the US, offering a temporary relief from the threat of punitive trade measures that risked accelerating manufacturing relocation. In return, as of last week, the UK has agreed pricing and reimbursement changes, including a cap on rebates paid by pharma companies to the NHS at around 15%.
While these new developments ease some trade pressures, they also underscore continuing structural challenges. The recent tariff reprieve mitigates the risk of manufacturing relocation driven by US trade policy, but it does not eliminate broader investment incentives pulling capital toward the US market, where leaders like GSK emphasise the attractiveness of scale and regulatory predictability. At the same time, lingering debates over UK pricing, uptake and access have sparked criticism about the current frameworks. The new(ish) VPAG model was introduced to stabilise the market after years of volatility and has been welcomed for restoring some predictability. However, it has certainly come under some criticism from industry due to high rebate rates, slow uptake of innovation and doesn’t fully address the UK’s declining position as a first-launch market. Will VPAG exist at this time next year?
Against this uncertain, perhaps unsettling, global backdrop, pharma companies will need to elevate their communications. Communications must be a strategic function of the business. The most successful companies will proactively articulate clear value narratives that demonstrate long-term commitment to UK science and patient access, whilst transparently navigating geopolitical and policy shifts responsibly.
But what does this mean in practice? In short, it means doubling down on patient-centred storytelling that connects innovation to real world outcomes, and crafting messages that reassure policymakers and the public about affordability, sustainability and ethical responsibility. What we can expect to see:
- Evidence-led narratives linking R&D investment to real, tangible health benefits.
- Human stories that put patients at the heart of every conversation
- Transparent dialogue on pricing, access and global supply
2026 will be about turning promising sparks into sustained progress on health inequity
In recent years, UK policymakers, institutions, and organisations have finally started saying the quiet part out loud: health isn’t just about medicines and hospitals, but about who actually gets to access them and the conditions they live in. Health Equals’ “Lives Cut Short” campaign, launched in 2023, took the message mainstream, reframing health inequalities as a national issue rather than niche policy debate. NHS England then moved from talk to transparency, publishing elective waiting-list data by deprivation and ethnicity so local systems can target unjust delays. And City Hall’s Health Inequalities Strategy doubled down on free school meals, cleaner air, and curbs on junk-food ads – real, structural levers that shape child health across the life-span.
And the policy mood is being matched by a sharper evidence base. UKHSA’s Health Inequalities in Health Protection report set out the hard reality: people in the poorest 20% face almost double the emergency admissions from infectious disease. Stark ethnic disparities cut across conditions, from respiratory infections to TB. Add in the recent Child Poverty Strategy, projected to lift ~550,000 children out of poverty by 2030, and we have genuine catalysts for change. But will we actually keep the fire burning?
Let’s be real: we’ve been here before. In the not-too-distant past, many across the healthcare industry made DEI commitments. Budgets were being ring-fenced, new roles created, policies reviewed, and inequity finally named in board papers with plans to actually do something about it. Once it no longer felt ‘popular’, following high-profile political backlash against DEI earlier this year, efforts were abandoned and so were the people they were meant to serve.
More than just a prediction, this is a challenge we’re setting for all of us in the healthcare industry: 2026 will be about turning these sparks into sustained progress on addressing health inequity.
So, what does ‘keeping the fire burning’ actually look like? Here are a few things to get you going:
- Adopt a life-course lens to better understand the social determinants of health and how they compound, and identify key inflection points to make a difference
- Tackle stigma like it’s a risk factor – because it is. Factor it into your interventions early and often, working to address it consistently. Look to work with those who have lived experience and prioritise co-creation when designing interventions, stress-testing language, visuals and dissemination methods with those who are actually affected to ensure you’re addressing stigma rather than further entrenching stereotypes.
- The new-and-improved COM-B 2.0 is coming. The updates now allow for a closer look and individual vs population breakdowns, clearer links with other behaviour change frameworks to better plan interventions. Measurable variables have now also been applied to capability, opportunity and motivation. In short: a key tool to do things better has just gotten a whole lot better.
Gen AI optimisation will continue influence patients, but it will not replace the need for validation from trusted human sources
More patients are using tools like ChatGPT and Copilot because they’re fast and easy. If something feels off, AI is often one of the first places people go to sense-check symptoms or understand a condition, sometimes before they ever speak to a clinician.
But that doesn’t mean they’re taking what AI says at face value.
AI is shaping the early questions people ask and the expectations they bring into appointments, but when it comes to reassurance and decision-making, people still want a human voice they trust.
Research published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research shows that while search engines and health websites remain dominant, 21.2 percent of people are already using LLMs for health information. Even so, the most common way of validating what they found online was still by consulting healthcare professionals, cited by 30.3 percent of participants.
Being visible in AI-generated answers is becoming more important (GEO), but trust is still earned through credible, human-led sources. People want to know where information comes from, who stands behind it, and whether it reflects real expertise and experience.
At the same time, PR is playing a bigger role. As discovery moves away from clicking links and towards consuming AI-generated responses, editorial coverage and trusted journalism are increasingly shaping how brands show up inside AI tools. Earned media, expert voices and thought leadership don’t just influence how people see brands, they also influence how AI systems describe them. That’s why PR, SEO and content teams will be working more closely together than ever before in 2026.
We can’t raise this trend without acknowledging that independent journalism is under real pressure. Shrinking newsrooms, commercial strain and, ironically in this context, the rapid rise of AI-generated content are making it harder for trusted, evidence-based reporting to cut through. Yet, a thriving media sector has never mattered more. Independent journalists play a vital role in holding power to account, challenging misinformation and helping people make sense of complex issues. Supporting quality journalism isn’t about nostalgia for the ‘old media’; it’s about protecting the conditions that allow informed, credible conversations to exist at all.
Stepping into 2026
As creative and visual types, we also like to look at ‘the colours of the year. Pantone’s Colour of 2026 is… drum roll… White. Oh. We’ll go with Dulux’s Rhythm of Blues to keep us moving in the right direction as we step into the future of healthcare communications. So,
If you’re looking for a little more colour in your health communications in 2026, disco into our inbox at st*********@***********th.io let’s step into 2026 together.
