Culture Wars: The Health Report.

By Gareth Morgan – Executive Director

Culture wars are reshaping the risk landscape for brands and organisations. What once seemed like distant political skirmishes have become defining features of the environment every brand now operates in. Debates around values, identity and lifestyle can erupt suddenly – pulling organisations into polarised conversations they never intended to join.

Our latest research, Culture Wars: The Health Report, explores how these dynamics are playing out across the health sector. We’ve focused first on right-wing populism – left-wing movements will be examined later in the series – because of the growing influence of MAGA in the United States, Reform in the UK and similar parties across Europe. These groups have been at the forefront of the culture wars, often targeting brands they believe have been captured by progressive or “woke” agendas. Their ability to mobilise audiences online and turn complex social and health issues into simple narratives about control, trust and freedom makes them a significant force in shaping public discourse.

To understand this landscape, we’ve identified 50 of the most influential right-wing populist voices in the UK and analysed tens of thousands of their social posts. Mentions of health jumped 44% on 2024, with the biggest spikes in:

💉 Vaccines – up 54%
🧠 Mental health – up 63%
📱 Digital health – up 484%
💊 Obesity drugs – up 27%

Across these topics, health is consistently framed through a populist lens of control, institutional distrust and resistance to perceived “woke” or technocratic agendas. What’s emerging is not just an online argument – it’s a powerful current influencing how people see science, government and even the role of business itself.

To test how far these narratives resonate, we surveyed a representative sample of the British public. While most people reject the more extreme rhetoric, the results showed that these messages can land in nuanced and sometimes unexpected ways. A sizeable 28% of respondents, for example, believe that information about vaccine harms was withheld from the public. On obesity jabs, the youngest and oldest generations surveyed took the most morally disapproving positions, an “odd horseshoe” of opinion across age groups. And on digital IDs for NHS access, we saw a clear schism within the right: Conservative supporters tended to back the idea, while Reform-aligned respondents were firmly opposed.

These insights underline how complicated it can be to distinguish noise from signal. For brands and organisations, this matters. They need to be considering who is driving these campaigns, how the arguments are being framed, and whether the public, or which parts of the public, agree with them. Understanding this will be critical to managing risk, anticipating flashpoints and preparing effective, credible responses.

The culture wars are not background noise. They are reshaping the environment in which every organisation operates. With foresight, preparation and purpose, brands can navigate this complexity, lead with clarity and turn challenge into competitive advantage. Download the full report here.