New Findings on Americans' Use of CAM
The findings below, presented at the North American Research Conference on Complementary and Integrative Medicine, are based on data from the 2002 National Health Interview Survey of over 31,000 American adults (nccam.nih.gov/news/report.pdf). The CAM supplement was funded by NCCAM.
Patterns of Herb Use
Paula Gardiner, M.D., of Harvard Medical School's Osher Institute, presented new findings about people who use herbs for health purposes. The survey participants who used herbs were more likely than other participants to be uninsured, female, and more highly educated; to live in the West; to use prescription or over-the-counter medications; and to identify their race/ethnicity (R/E) as "Non-Hispanic Other." The people who used herbs less tended to identify their R/E as "Non-Hispanic Black" and to live in the South or Midwest. The herbs most commonly used were echinacea (41 percent), ginseng (25 percent), ginkgo (22 percent), and garlic (20 percent). Herbs were used most commonly for head or chest cold (30 percent), musculoskeletal conditions (16 percent), and stomach or intestinal illness (11 percent). Seventy-two percent of the people who used herbs also used prescription medications. More than half of the people who used both an herb and a prescription medication did not tell a conventional health care provider about this.
Use by People With CVD
Gloria Yeh, M.D., and Russell Phillips, M.D., also of the Osher Institute, found that 36 percent of the participants who had cardiovascular disease (CVD, or diseases of the heart and circulatory system) used CAM--a rate similar to that in the general population. Among these CAM users with CVD, 23 percent used mind-body therapies (MB) such as meditation, yoga, tai chi, and others. They used MB most commonly for musculoskeletal complaints (24 percent), anxiety/depression (23 percent), and stress/emotional health/wellness (16 percent). Only 13 percent used MB for their CVD specifically, but 94 percent of them felt that MB for that use was helpful. Using MB for mental health treatment and stress management may also have cardiac benefits.
Social Factors
According to this study's authors, studies indicate that CAM use is linked to factors such as gender, R/E, and socioeconomic position (SEP)--more specifically, women, non-Hispanic whites, and people of higher SEP are more likely to use CAM. Maria Chao, Dr.P.H., and colleagues at the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Center for Complementary Medicine, Columbia University, analyzed more closely the interplay among those social factors. They found that SEP influenced how likely it is that a person will use CAM, regardless of the person's gender. While SEP also plays a role in whether a person of specific R/E will use CAM, that influence is not as strong.
