A growing number of Americans are resorting to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), particularly people who have a hard time paying for the costs of conventional care, a new study reports. This study regarding CAM trends is published in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.
According to researcher Dejun Su, PhD, a sociologist at the University of Texas - Pan American, “The rising cost of health care is outpacing inflation and salaries, and there’s a good possibility that that is linked to increasing CAM use."
Complementaray and alternative medicine, which often includes practices and techniques including yoga, massage, herbal medicine, and meditation, has been growing in popularity for a number of years. In 1990, nearly one-third of Americans had utilized some type of CAM. By 2002, the percentage of people who had used CAM had almost doubled. This trend, the report finds, remains on the rise.
This study compared data from the 2002 and 2007 National Health Interview Surveys, which are performed every year by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, in order to monitor the health care situation of Americans as well as their access to health care.
Over one-third of people who stated they used CAM in 2007 also reported that they had a medical need they couldn't pay for or had delayed in seeking out medical care. Su suggests that this is can be partly attributed to the greater affordability of CAM, including provider-based CAM practices, as compared to conventional practices.
No comments:
Post a Comment