CAM Use by U.S. Adults in 2002 and 1997 Remains Similar, Survey Says
Researchers from Harvard Medical School in Boston compared complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by adults in 1997 and 2002 and found the numbers to be similar—more than one in three U.S. adults (36.5% and 35.0%, respectively) used at least one form of CAM.
The continued widespread use of individual and multiple CAM therapies underscores the need to rigorously evaluate the safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of these approaches, according to the study’s lead author Hilary Tindle, MD, MPH, Harvard Medical School (HMS) research fellow, and co-author David Eisenberg, MD, director of the Division for Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies and the Osher Institute at HMS.
The study results appear in the January/February issue of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. The study compared results of the National Health Interview Survey in 2002 and a survey conducted by researchers at HMS (Eisenberg et al) in 1997. The two surveys were similar but not identical.
Over the five-year period between the two surveys, the total number of Americans using any CAM therapy remained fairly stable at 72 million. However, there were changes in the choice of CAM therapies used. The largest change was a 50% jump in the use of herbal supplements, growing over the five years from 12.1% of adults reporting usage in 1997 to 18.6% in 2002. The practice of yoga increased 40% over the same period, growing from 3.7% in 1997 to 5.1% in 2002.
Use of acupuncture, biofeedback, energy healing, and hypnosis remained essentially unchanged between 1997 and 2002, while the use of homeopathy, high-dose vitamins, chiropractic, and massage therapy declined slightly. Since consumers pay for many CAM therapies out-of-pocket, the authors suggest that some of these declines may be due, at least in part, to a downturn in the U.S. economy from 1997 to 2002.
The ways in which several CAM therapies are used also appear to have changed. For example, only 5% of people who used herbs saw a practitioner of herbal medicine in 2002, compared to 15% in 1997. "Such changes are important considering that other research has shown that 60 to 70% of patients who use CAM therapies do not disclose it to their physician," Tindle says.
This work was funded in part by grants from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and private foundations.
CAM Use by U.S. Adults in 2002 and 1997 Remains Similar, Survey Says. Altern Ther Women's Health 2005;7(5):40.
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