Stat: The global wellness industry is predicted to nearly double by 2025

The GWI conducts global research on the wellness industry and updates the figures every 2–3 years. Its most recent findings value the global wellness economy at £3.8 trillion ($4.4 trillion, €4.4 trillion), but the figure is predicted to reach £6.1 trillion ($7 trillion, €6.9 trillion) by 2025, nearly doubling in size (source: Global Wellness Institute).

Despite the size of the wellness economy, there are still health disparities between different countries and regions. Among the £3.8 trillion ($4.4 trillion, €4.4 trillion) of spending in 2020, 68% was concentrated in the countries designated as ‘high-income’ by the World Bank, 26% in ‘upper-middle-income countries’, and only 6% in ‘lower-middle’ and ‘low-income’ countries. According to the Global Wellness Institute’s Defining Wellness Policy report, there is a strong positive correlation between wellness spending (measured by wellness economy per capita) and consumer wealth (measured by GDP per capita).

In addition to the evident health gap, the organisation also suggests that economic inequity is slowing progress towards a healthier world. Some 74% of all deaths globally are a result of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which are considered preventable (source: World Health Organization). Despite this, GWI estimates that only about 4% of annual global health expenditure is on prevention, risk reduction and public health.