$9.8 Trillion Projected global wellness economy by 2029 Shift Is Reshaping Preventative Healthcare and Driving Demand for Clinics and Advanced Imaging is on the RISE

Minnesota | April 2026

by: Jai Bowie CEO, Co-Founder of MedNexus

MedNexus initiatives are experiencing increasing demand as the U.S. wellness economy accelerates, integrating advanced imaging into healthcare where diagnostics and digital health are becoming one. We are being called to action and moving forward at the right time.

Our 2026-2030 strategy is focused on execution and national expansion, launching key markets in California, Texas, Minnesota, Illinois, Florida, and New Jersey with growth into Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Oregon, Tennessee and Georgia.

These markets represent strong demand for wellness, preventative care, and advanced diagnostics. This is a targeted rollout designed to scale quickly in regions already moving toward proactive, patient driven healthcare.

The wellness market has doubled since 2013, and grew 7.9% from 2023 to 2024, reaching a new peak of $6.8 trillion. All 11 wellness sectors now exceed their 2019 values, most by significant margins.

Wellness ($6.8T) now surpasses other global mega-industries, including sports ($2.7T), tourism ($5T), the green economy, ($5.1T), and IT ($5.3T). It’s almost four times bigger than the pharmaceutical industry ($1.8T) and is 60% as large as all global health expenditures (including consumer and government spending of $11.2T). Wellness keeps growing its share of the overall world economy: if it represented 5.7% of global GDP in 2019, and 6.1% in 2024, GWI forecasts that it will comprise 7.1% by 2029.

GWI ref: https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/

Wellness Economy Definitions:

The Global Wellness Institute defines the wellness economy as industries that enable consumers to incorporate wellness activities and lifestyles into their daily lives. The wellness economy encompasses 11 sectors, and we use the definitions below for the purposes of measuring each sector.

• Preventive and personalized medicine and public health: Includes expenditures on medical services that focus on treating “well” people, preventing disease, or detecting risk factors—for example, routine physical exams, diagnostic and screening tests, genetic testing, etc. Personalized health uses sophisticated information and data for individual patients (including genetic, molecular and environmental screening, analysis and diagnostics; personalized disease management services; and health IT such as electronic health records, telemedicine and remote patient monitoring) to provide tailored approaches for preventing disease, diagnosing and managing risk factors, or managing and treating conditions.

• Traditional and complementary medicine: Encompasses expenditures on diverse medical, healthcare, holistic, and mentally or spiritually-based systems, services and products that are not generally considered to be part of conventional medicine or the dominant health care system—including homeopathic, naturopathic, chiropractic, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, energy healing, traditional/herbal remedies and supplements, etc. The nomenclature for this sector is evolving alongside growing consumer adoption of traditional/indigenous, complementary, alternative and integrative medical practices outside of the conventional/Western medical system

• Mental wellness: Consumer spending on activities, products and services whose primary aim is to help us along the mental wellness pathways of growth and nourishment and rest and rejuvenation. It encompasses four subsectors: self-improvement; brain-boosting nutraceutical and botanicals; meditation and mindfulness; and senses, spaces and sleep.

• Physical activity: Consumer spending associated with intentional physical activities performed during leisure and recreation, including three recreational activity subsectors (sports and active recreation, fitness and mindful movement) and three enabling subsectors (technology, equipment and supplies, and clothing and apparel).

• Wellness real estate: Expenditures on the construction of residential and commercial/institutional properties (including office, hospitality, mixed-use/multi-family, medical, and leisure) that incorporate intentional wellness elements in their design, materials, and building, as well as their amenities, services, and/or programming. Wellness real estate is estimated as a percentage of each country’s total annual construction output (based primarily on UN data).

• Workplace wellness: Includes expenditures on programs, services, activities and equipment by employers aimed at improving their employees’ health and wellness. These expenditures aim to raise awareness, provide education, and offer incentives that address specific health risk factors and behaviors (e.g., lack of exercise, poor eating habits, stress, obesity, smoking) and encourage employees to adopt healthier lifestyles.

• Wellness tourism: The aggregation of all expenditures made by wellness tourists—primary and secondary, international and domestic—including spending on lodging, food and beverage, activities and excursions, shopping and in-country transportation.

• Spa economy: Includes the revenues of spa facilities and the related cluster of sectors that support and enable spa businesses. The spa economy includes spa facilities, spa education (for therapists and managers/directors, both initial training and continuing education), spa consulting, spa capital investments, spa associations, and spa-related media and events.

• Thermal/mineral springs: Encompasses the revenues of business establishments associated with the wellness, recreational and therapeutic uses of water with special properties, including thermal water, mineral water and seawater.

• Healthy eating, nutrition and weight loss: Includes consumer expenditures on vitamins and supplements, fortified/functional foods and nutraceuticals, natural and organic foods, health foods, sports nutrition, nutrition and dietary services, and weight loss/management products and services.

• Personal care and beauty: Includes consumer expenditures on beauty and salon services (excluding spas); skin, hair and nail care services and products; cosmetics, toiletries and other personal care products; dermatology; and prescription pharmaceuticals for skin care. Also includes products and services that specifically address age-related health and appearance issues, such as cosmetics/cosmeceuticals for skin/face/body care, hair care/growth, and pharmaceuticals/supplements that treat age-related health conditions.