Ipsos surveyed 1,120 Americans and asked them about HCP engagement, AI in health, and what makes them healthy. This data is part of their "What The Future" reporting (what did you think it meant? -Ed.).

Better than the report are the full data tables the firm released alongside. We scoured these data for items that Wire readers would find useful.

When it comes to the primary care physician, most Americans are doing their due diligence. 

However, when AI access is phrased as an actual HCP visit, numbers plummet. The question reads as: "In general, how often do you visit/consult with each of the following for yourself? - AI providers (e.g., Woebot, Youper, Florence)"

The raw data file also includes OB/GYN, mental health providers, and dental providers.

The same numbers of Americans indicate dismay that they don't know who to trust when it comes to online information as also say they research online extensively. There is no indication in the data these are the same people, the numbers just line up.

As we can see, 65% are doing their own research. The answer was worded as "I do my own research to understand what food, medicine and lifestyle choices are healthy and what aren’t."

Nearly three-quarters of Americans want their doctor to understand the costs of prescribed therapies. This starts making HCPs into financial advisors helping patients navigate the health and insurance landscape.

When asked about the main factors that determine personal health, food comes first. Then genetics.

It's no surprise that Americans trust their doctor with their health data more than AI. We wonder how many of the 73% who don't trust AI also have rings, watches, or smartphones that gather health data...

The full data tables have a lot of info on menopause, if that's of interest, and some more general questions.

Well, that was quite a week, eh? (Sigh, yes -Ed.)

Even folks living under rocks know about the White House Memo on prescription drug advertising and its promise to hold the industry to the current rules.

To understand where this memo and directed activities are coming from, its useful to understand that the general public aren't really fans of DTC ads.

The fundamental trouble for pharma when it comes to advertising is that citizens see the profit motive and immediately feel untrusting. The Hill story includes a poll and 82% of its respondents support a DTC ban.

The question was "To what extent do you support or oppose a ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs?"

If you want to see what actual patients think, rather than the general public, check out our coverage of Swoop's latest study.

The memo essentially doubles-down on the existing FDA rules and this means that the current guidances we work from are still valid.

Klick obviously has a POV coming on this (ping your Klick rep to get a copy) but the general approach is "keep on keeping on."

For example, social media posts almost always have full ISI included. There is no "abbreviated statement" for these posts so they likely won't be affected by any enforcement activities that focus on that.

The memo refers to a meta analysis from the Oxford Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research which commits the intellectual crime (link to related Wire story -Ed.) we are disappointingly used to at this point: conflation of sponsored and non-sponsored content. This study is highlighted in the "Dear Pharma" letters sent out.

If you remove from this analysis the private citizen content that does not fall under the FDA purview, those numbers go to 100% compliance because pharma follows the rules.

Recent letters from the FDA, though few in number, do highlight a focus on overstatement of efficacy and we expect that to continue in the larger volumes promised by the FDA.

This is the most likely letter topic for online promotion (rather than insufficient risk information) because full ISI is already the norm there.

However, anything is possible. If you get a letter and you want to share it with the Wire editorial team we'd love to see it. Just reply to this email and attach it, we'll get it.

Also reporting:

A study from KFF asked 1,283 Americans about their usage of social media and influencer content for health topics. They found that just over half at least occasionally use social media for health topics. 

The question being answered is "How often, if at all, do you use social media such as Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or similar sites or apps to find health information and advice?"

The researchers also asked about trust in the information being presented: "Thinking about health information and advice you may see on each platform, would you say that most, some, a little, or none of that information is trustworthy?"

In the following chart we totaled the positive answers into a single number.

We can see the demographics of the platforms at work here. The younger users are more likely to use the platforms for health information, and so TikTok floats to the top. These numbers are users of the platform, not absolute.

This report came out at the end of July but its message is timeless: patients are having treatments slowed down by prior authorizations. The first chart is the most shocking, over 90% rejection rates across four major conditions.

Notice that for two conditions, hypertension and osteoporosis, the one-year mark still has over 50% of patients rejected for a prescribed therapy.

These rejections can be as simple as "no" meaning the drug simply isn't covered by a payor or everyone's favorite cost-savings measure: prior authorization.

Of the patients that did overcome insurance reluctance to pay for a drug, the time needed could exceed nine weeks in some cases. The averages were around 30 days.

This report from IQVIA really highlights the obstacles that patients face for some conditions when dealing with commercial insurance.

Basis conducted a survey of 140 marketing and advertising professionals in July to see how our approaches to AI have changed since 2023. Far more marketers are now using AI every day with 68% nearly every day.

This year, only 25% of respondents said that they use AI tools for generating content. We looked at the previous data and lined up the entries. One question changed considerably (marked with *), from using AI for summarizing meetings or content to "streamlining processes." It's not really the same question, but we lined that data up anyway.

We can see research grew a lot while ad personalization fell off. Using AI for production-level content remains low as the tools remain hard to control (but not impossible as our maestro Owen Osbourne, Director of Generative AI Design, often demonstrates).

When asked what generative AI tools they use, marketers gave predictable answers.

However, only 66% of the companies actually pay for subscriptions. Seeing that ChatGPT is split into three subscription tiers we can see that it remains dominant. Assuming little overlap in respondents, that is 89.1% paying for some form of OpenAI product, which tracks with usage.

This report is 37 pages of marketing's use of AI. Grab a copy and see how your team ranks and maybe get ideas on how to incorporate more AI into your workflows.

The findings of this question from Ipsos of 1,085 Americans won't surprise any users of AI. People don't trust it unless a human is involved.

Notice that employed Americans trust it more than the average. We have advice for the authors though based on this statement:

We actually don't want people to trust the output of AI yet. Anyone who uses AI daily knows that you need to be an expert in your field to use it because it will still gleefully spout nonsense with unrepentant consistency. 

Once that issue is fixed then, and only then, we can start asking Americans to generally trust the output.

Emplifi has a report out that shows some very specific data. We say it's specific because the study on which it's based is highly selective:

When asked for the top reason they like AI for brand interactions, it's about speed and access. 

When asked if they are satisfied with their AI-driven support experiences, 71% said Very or Somewhat.

While these consumers are excited about AI for their retail or food delivery purchases, they may not be quite as excited about Healthcare. Our industry ended up at the bottom of the rankings for where AI would most improve customer service.

That said, AI is still critical for healthcare products and services. Consumers are using the technology to research purchases so you know those behaviors will also affect healthcare research as well.

A report from TripleLift looks at programmatic video (not social), what makes great creative, and how to measure it.

Respondents focused on the story (all components) and the visual design of online video when describing how they define "great creative."

The top two items in the "how do you measure" question are both engagement in that clicks are engagement, albeit usually the best kind. The next two, conversion and ROAS, can be harder for pharma that deals with the non-digital "chasm" of patient/HCP conversations.

Pharma sometimes feels singled out because our regulatory processes make creative more expensive than other industries and so we tend to make fewer versions. However, while that's true, other industries also complain of not enough creative for testing (yay, I guess? -Ed.).

This question asked where creative falls short in campaigns.

An infographic from the VAB highlights how important video (TV and other sources) is to Americans. With just over five hours between work and sleep, 2.5 of those hours are with video.

Political turmoil in Nepal turned deadly recently as the government banned social media to keep protestors from communicating. In the streets, security forces used live ammunition against protestors. The protestors overthrew the government and the military stepped in.

The story for Wire readers is, first, there was shockingly little news on the turmoil in Nepal. Second, the protestors were organized on Discord and used that platform to decide on an interim leader.

Pew Research has data on global internet usage. The communications technology has become so pervasive that now "daily" usage is considered light.

Fun fact, the author started using the Internet back in the 1980s (it was capitalized as a proper noun back then). If you want boring stories of 80x25 character screens, 1200 baud modems, UNIX and Telnet, and the late Dr. Dave Godfrey, a man far ahead of his time, just reply to this email (fine, talk to the readers, I don't care -Ed.).

It's impossible to tell, but it looks like most clinical trials are single country (the EU could easily be an outlier here). Only 5% are US and another country and 65% are ex-US.