From lip-syncs to learning: TikTok’s role in disease awareness

TikTok is not only for dance trends, lip-syncing and celebrity gossip. With over a billion active users, TikTok has become more than a source of entertainment. People are using the platform as a search engine, a learning platform, and to keep up with culture and trends. With more than 50% of Gen Z getting their health advice from TikTok, the platform has rapidly become one of the most influential spaces for health and wellness. Its unique algorithm thrives on authenticity, offering brands an unprecedented opportunity to connect with audiences in creative, meaningful ways. For the pharmaceutical industry, having a presence on TikTok is not just beneficial, but essential if we want to make the industry relevant to the next generation of stakeholders and talent.

But for health communicators, the question isn’t just how to use TikTok, it’s how to do it compliantly.

The TikTok algorithm

TikTok’s algorithm is one of the most sophisticated in social media. It delivers highly personalised content recommendations on each user’s For You Page by analysing their behaviour. To make these content recommendations it looks at the user’s video likes and shares, comments on posts, videos watched to completion, and favourited videos. Notably, the algorithm does not consider follower count or previous high performing videos. This means every creator, regardless of follower size, has the potential for their content to go viral. When a new video is posted, TikTok initially shows it to a smaller audience. If engagement levels match or exceeds those of similar content, the platform expands its reach and continues to promote it widely.

Because of this system, TikTok consistently achieves higher engagement rates than other social media platforms. Short-form videos, live streams, and educational content tend to perform particularly well, making the platform a powerful tool for creators and brands.

Understanding how TikTok’s algorithm works can give health communicators an advantage when creating campaigns. Here is how the industry can translate insights into actionable strategy:

• Hook viewers in the first few seconds.
• Optimise captions and spoken keywords for TikTok SEO.
• Drive interaction to boost engagement signals – this is campaign dependent, for some videos it may be more compliant to have comments and stitches off.

Regulations in the UK

When creating content for platforms like TikTok, it’s essential to understand the regulatory requirements of the market you’re targeting. In Europe, pharmaceutical companies must comply with The EFPIA Code, which sets strict standards for the promotion and communication of medicines. In the United Kingdom (UK), they must comply with the ABPI Code.

The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) released a revised social media guidance in February 2026, the amended guidance includes the use of social media in various situations such as working with influencers and contracting, clinical trial recruitments, patient support, as well as a company’s use of corporate social media channels.

The MHRA Blue Guide is a guide on the advertising and promotion of medicines in the UK. While the 2024 ABPI Code does acknowledge social media, its guidance remains broad and often doesn’t reflect the unique algorithm of newer platforms such as TikTok.

Alongside this, the MHRA Blue Guide provides detailed direction on the advertising and promotion of medicines within the UK. Of course, a key principle shared by the guidance documents mentioned above is that direct-to-consumer promotion of prescription-only medicines is prohibited. As a result, most social media activity by pharmaceutical companies takes the form of disease awareness campaigns.

The purpose of disease awareness campaign is to encourage members of the public to seek treatment for their symptoms while no way promoting the use of a specific medicine. According to the ABPI Code, depending on the circumstances, these campaigns must fall into one of the following categories: proactive, reactive, or reference information.

The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and PMCPA also requires content creators to clearly disclose paid partnerships, increasing transparency for audiences and shaping how influencer collaborations must be executed on the platform.

While both the ABPI Code and MHRA Blue Guide reference social media, they do not account for TikTok’s unique content distribution mechanisms. This creates challenges for pharmaceutical marketers who must balance algorithm-friendly content with stringent compliance requirements. The updated PMCPA guidance does, however, highlight the importance of considering platform reach and a company’s ability to control who receives the information. It emphasises that companies should implement appropriate controls to ensure content reaches its intended audience

Why TikTok is beneficial to the pharma industry

Understanding the regulatory landscape is crucial, but it is only one side of the story. The other is opportunity. TikTok offers a powerful, culturally relevant space for health communicators to reach patients where they already are, compliantly.

TikTok is a highly personalised social platform, making it simpler to find niche health communities. These communities thrive because their content feels authentic, rooted in real-life experience, and direct conversations with audiences. Hashtags such as #diabetesawareness host over 200k videos ranging from advice, myth-busting to education. For many users it can act as a one-stop hub where they can access a wide range of perspectives and health-related information in a format that’s engaging and easy to digest.

For pharma, this can present an opportunity to engage with the communities and better understand what information people are actively seeking. Health communicators can contribute to the conversation through extending disease awareness campaigns to TikTok, or incorporating TikTok into the campaign strategy, and provide credible information, supporting better health literacy and building trust with audiences who value authenticity. This is particularly important as TikTok continues to evolve into a search engine for health advice, according to Emplicit 34% of adults using it as their preferred search engine of choice. Being present in these spaces allows health communicators to provide reliable information where audiences are already looking for it, and working with TikTok creators can make content feel more relatable and authentic compared to traditional campaigns.

TikTok can be an avenue for health communicators to reach people earlier in their health journey. With approximately 71% of TikTok users being under the age of 31, and they actively engage with health information on TikTok, the platform offers access to demographics that turn to social media before traditional healthcare sources. Reaching these audiences early created opportunities to counter misinformation, and support informed health conversations from the start, while also building trust with the public.

Health misinformation on TikTok

The qualities that make TikTok such a great platform such as, relatability, storytelling, and the capability to go viral, can create space for misinformation to spread. Health content on the platform is often simplified, trend-driven, and shaped by what performs well algorithmically rather than fact-checked or accurate. A study found that the prevalence of health misinformation on social media has continued to rise, especially around vaccines (32% of observed content), drugs (22%), and noncommunicable disease topics (19%). In fact, widespread anti-vaccine posts led to decreased vaccine acceptance and increases in preventable disease outbreaks in 2025.

This is where the opportunity for health communicators becomes more important. Being present on TikTok isn’t just about visibility but about responsibility. This doesn’t mean replacing lived experiences, credible health content should sit alongside it and add nuance, clarity, and trust. This approach, if done well, can support healthier conversations, strengthening trust in health care voices and help shape conversations before misinformation takes hold.

Creative, compliant, community-first digital health campaigns

Overall, TikTok can be both a challenge and an opportunity for the pharmaceutical industry. It signals a broader shift in how the public seek health information, with audiences increasingly turning to social media to make sense of symptoms, conditions and lived experiences. The industry has a choice of either standing on the sidelines or engaging thoughtfully and responsibly. To be successful on TikTok, health communicators have to flip traditional communications on its head and rethink how information is delivered on a platform that thrives on storytelling, community, and culture. By embracing storytelling, prioritising compliance, and respecting the intelligence of digital first, media literate audiences, pharma has an opportunity to redefine its role in disease awareness. In doing so, it can help shape healthier conversations earlier in the journey, not by dominating the narrative, but by contributing to it with clarity, credibility, and care.

Still curious how smart digital marketing can work in healthcare, take a look at
https://curioushealth.io/services/digital-marketing/

WRITTEN BY

Hajira Mukhtar

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