Are consumers likely to increase their healthcare spending in the next six months?

In a new YouGov Surveys: Serviced poll across 18 key international markets we asked consumers if they expect their spending on medicines and healthcare products to increase. Nearly a fifth (19%) of the public in the markets we polled say they believe they will spend more on healthcare in the next six months, compared to their spending over the previous six months.

While almost half of respondents say the same about groceries (46%), almost a fifth say so about air travel and hotels (18%) and vehicles (17%). Streaming subscriptions (8%) and video games (6%) round out the bottom of the list of categories where consumers expect to spend more money over the next six months.

A third of respondents in Poland (30%) - the highest of all regions – say they expect to spend more on medicines and healthcare products over the next six months. However, this proportion drops considerably across all other polled European markets. While slightly more than a fifth of consumers in Italy (22%) say the same, just one in ten respondents in Great Britain (11%) and Spain (10%) agree.

Coming to the APAC region, more than a quarter of consumers in Singapore (29%), India (28%) and Australia (27%) expect their healthcare spending to increase in the next six months - compared to just 14% of consumers in Indonesia who believe the same.

Similarly, one in four consumers in the UAE (23%) say they expect to spend more money on medicines and healthcare products than they did over the past six months.

Our North American respondents display more scattered opinions. While 26% of consumers in Mexico expect greater healthcare spends over the next six months, a smaller proportion of Canadians (22%) and Americans (18%) say the same.

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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 509 and 2,003 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in July 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.